


to the best partner ever

by restlessvirtue



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fake Relationship, High School AU, Inspired by To All The Boys I've Loved Before, Teen AU, i'm sorry i'm back on my letters bs??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-09-28 04:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17175695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessvirtue/pseuds/restlessvirtue
Summary: When Scott's older brothers decide his love life needs a little kickstart, it's Tessa who ends up in charge of damage control. This is a story about how one letter can change everything.Inspired byTo All The Boys I've Loved Before. (Though not too faithful to the film.)





	1. a mutually beneficial arrangement

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t going to follow the original plot of the film exactly so if you’re working on a similar AU, please don’t let me stop you. I’ve lifted pretty loosely and tried to rework it in a way that feels right for them. ‘Them’ meaning the fictionalised versions of Tessa and Scott that I now write fic for, I guess. 
> 
> I'll warn you, this is a different vibe to my usual but I really wanted the challenge of trying something new. Expect a much faster pace than my other works, actual plotting and unusually lengthy chapters (by my standards). Also, I really will try to avoid using letters as a plot device in future, haha. 
> 
> This fic wouldn't have been possible without the consistent encouragement and much-required help of [bucketofrice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice/pseuds/bucketofrice) and [falsettodrop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsettodrop/pseuds/falsettodrop). I love and support you two always. Thank you. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! (Also, a belated Happy Holidays to all of you!)

In many ways, Scott Moir has always been a late bloomer. Puberty hadn’t hit him until long after his peers had started growing stubble, towering over him and, most pertinently of all, talking to girls. His slightly stunted growth put his efforts with the opposite sex a little behind the curve.

At six, there’d been Molly, who’d briefly let him hold her hand before realizing she much preferred playing cat’s cradle with Caity. (10 years later, she would realize she preferred a lot of things with Caity.)

Nearly two years after that, he’d been assigned his first skating partner. Whatever romantic hope he’d had there died somewhere between his first and fourth stumble at the local figure skating competition that she’d so enthusiastically urged their parents to enter them into. He’d been the better skater in practice, so she’d been adamant they could make the podium, but Scott had tired himself out at a hockey game the previous day and, unbeknownst to him at the time, put an abrupt end to that partnership.

Then came Tessa, his next skating partner. The one that stuck.

As kids, they'd spent eight months dating after he'd passed her a torn-off piece of paper that said, "Will you be my girlfriend?" with yes and no written underneath beside two hand-drawn checkboxes. She'd ticked yes and, for those eight months, they'd awkwardly held hands and barely spoken to each other. She’d even been his first kiss – fleeting as it might’ve been. He’d leaned slowly towards her, his eyes cautiously fixed on hers in anticipation of being rebuffed, until their puckered lips pressed together, light as a feather. He counted only one Mississippi before the spell was broken, but it made that particular skating carnival one they’d never forget.

The problem with Tessa and Scott, if you could call it a problem, was simply that they were good. _Really_ good. And to be really good, his buddies had very earnestly suggested to him, they needed to focus on their skating. At the time, this worked out, because Scott liked Tessa a lot and not being able to hold a conversation with her anymore was proving both impractical and disheartening. This was also during the days when the jury was still out on romance in general for the boisterous, outgoing 10-year-old Moir boy. None of his friends were ‘dating’ back then, really, so soon enough Scott wasn’t either.

And their skating _did_ improve, under his aunt’s tutelage and then, later, with the help of a coaching team who’d moved over from Kitchener. As a result, romance, inevitably, took a backseat to winning – winning convincingly and often.  

He was 14 before he found another girlfriend. Jenna Goodman. She was so pretty and confident, she always seemed like she could’ve had her pick of the bunch. But there came a day when she confessed to Scott, after he’d found her having a cry behind one of the school sheds, that she’d never had a boyfriend before – despite the very elaborate stories she’d told her friends. In a moment of hasty chivalry, Scott offered his services rather gamely and for several months acted the part. Their relationship proved to be more a mutual attempt to fit in, rather than the start of any great love story.

Scott and Jenna fizzled by the end of the school year, and when her family moved to Alberta, there wasn’t even a conversation to call it off. Of course, he still dined out on that heartbreak for months in an attempt to dismiss any of his friends’ efforts to matchmake.  

It was sometime later that same summer that Emily Peterson moved in across the street from the Moirs. While Scott still looked several years younger than his age and spent most nights praying for a growth spurt, Emily had the self-possessed demeanour of someone much older. She’d seemed so wonderfully, effortlessly cool and worldly, and her hair fell over her shoulders in loose red curls that made her look like a mermaid. After he’d helped carry some boxes during her family’s move, she would always smile and wave when they saw each other. Right away, she seemed friendly. Approachable, despite her seemingly effortless beauty.

When they started school together in the fall, she had ended up seated next to him in two of his classes. In Scott’s mind, it was fate. He’d decided to play the long game and wait for Emily to come to that same realization – hopefully sometime around when his voice broke and he finally gained another foot in height.

Emily did not wait.

Instead, Scott looked on as one of his closest buddies asked her to the school dance, thinking happily to himself about how nice it was that she got on so well with his friends. Blissfully ignorant.

It turned out that she got on a little too well with this particular friend.

So, Emily and Luke were dating. Dating like wear-each-other’s-initials-around-their-necks dating. In high school terms, they were married off. And they were both too popular to earn the requisite teasing for this.

Scott, meanwhile, had floundered romantically ever since. In lieu of female attention, he’d maintained a very committed relationship with his sport: ice hockey and, somewhat more reluctantly, figure skating. His life was an unsteady balance between the two, as Scott viewed school itself to be the nuisance obstacle that got in the way of his life on the ice. Some days, even the figure skating – despite the medals, despite his natural gift – also felt a bit like that: an obstacle. Because all he really wanted was to have a hockey stick in his hand, gunning it down the ice to get that perfect goal-scoring assist. The rush. The adrenaline. The camaraderie.

He was too good at ice dance to ignore it, though. And there was Tessa to consider.

“T, do you mind if we cut practice short? I want to keep myself fresh for the game later,” he asks her at practice as they’re nearing the end of their session. He makes the request just as Tessa is attempting to eavesdrop on Paul and Suzanne, who are caught up in deep conversation about the execution of the twizzle sequence. Scott gets half-distracted by one of the other skating teams passing by in a lift before he even finishes the question – though, in truth, it’s not much of a question.

Her mouth tightens to a sharp line, she says nothing, but gives a single, almost imperceptible nod of the head.

Scott brightens. “You’re the best.” No lingering guilt, no second thoughts. He chooses not to analyze the truth in his skating partner’s expression or the fact that she barely says another word to him as they go through just one more run-through. He thinks nothing of the exchange of glances between Tessa and Suze. There’s the big game to think about. And, besides, their first Junior Grand Prix event of the season isn’t for another three weeks.

Scott gestures for a fist bump when it’s over, after she’s grabbed her jacket from the boards and zipped it back up. She looks up at him for a moment and then touches her knuckles to his.

As they push their skate guards back on, she says, “Good luck later.”

“Thanks! I’ll see you there.”

And he will, because he always does. She sits in the exact same spot for every game. If there’s one constant in Scott’s world, it’s that. It’s Tessa in the stands, often with a book open in her lap, occasionally with Ethan Tremblay stretching out beside her, but always watching when Scott looks up for her. Sometimes, at their next practice, she’ll give him notes. She’ll let him run through a play-by-play as though she didn’t watch it all happen with her own two eyes and then, when he runs out of steam, she’ll lay out her own highlights, her own observations about the opponents, her own tactical suggestions (often more astute than his best efforts). The routine of it is so familiar, he takes it for granted.

That night, just as he’d predicted, he sees her in the crowd. He and Luke are going through their usual pre-game warm-up routine together on the ice, stretching out their legs before shooting a few pucks at the goal. The two boys collide, not entirely accidentally, as they complete one of their drills and that’s when Luke points up at her. “Your girl’s up there,” he says, leaning into his buddy’s ear, and, instinctively, Scott gives her a wave.

Even though she’d said nothing at all about his half-hearted approach to their training that morning, he feels compelled to play his heart out to make it up to her. To show her it wasn’t for nothing.

He’s almost wiped out before the end of the first period.

 

*

 

“What are you doing?” his mother asks, her eyebrow cocked and her hand on her hip when he arrives home from the game – a full hour after he’d said he would. He blows through the door like a hurricane, his gym bag hanging off his shoulder so heavily that his body appears misaligned.

“What?” he snaps back.

Alma’s no less serious as she says, “You’ve got an international in a few weeks and you’re out there getting knocked on your ass for a high school hockey game?” It’s not stern or accusatory in tone; there’s calm to it, but it’s a measure of resigned frustration, which, even in his most oblivious state, he can’t miss.

“Mom!”

As he drops all his stuff by the doorway, his mother holds out an ice pack. He places it against his shoulder without a word.

“Scotty, you can’t do both forever. It’s well past time that you come to your senses. I’m not saying no more hockey, but surely you can see that…” Alma stops herself. “You know what, Scott, it doesn’t matter. You gotta want it, right? Frankly, if you can’t see what everyone else can, there’s no telling you.”

“What are you—” He pulls the ice pack away to shake his head. “Mom, I just got a little banged up in a game. I don’t know why you’re—”

“I know you skipped out on practice earlier.”

“We just finished a little early.”

“So it was Tessa’s idea as well?”

He won’t betray her, instinct forcing out an urgent rebuttal: “No, but—”

His mother sighs so heavily it cuts him off. “Scott. We can talk about it later.”

He knows they won’t because they never do, but he can’t pretend not to be relieved that the conversation’s over. Whatever home truths his mother has for him, he doesn’t want to hear them. Instead, he sulks off to his bedroom to attempt to find a sleeping position that might minimize his injury-induced discomfort.

Scott ends up lying sideways, with all his weight on his good arm. It’s not comfortable but it’s not painful. At least, not too painful.

 _Tessa’s going to kill me_ , he thinks. _Well, she won’t. But she absolutely should_.

He looks at his phone to see if she’s texted him anything about the hockey scuffle. Not a word.  There are texts from his teammates – video messages of him crashing down onto the ice, celebrations about their win, a jibe from his brother (who’d evidently been within earshot of the conversation with Alma), and one very out of the ordinary alert from Emily Peterson.

He goes straight to it, his heart hammering in his chest just reading her name in his notifications. The thread opens to a white speech bubble that simply says, “I have your letter. I don’t know what to say.”

_Letter?_

Then another text comes through in the thread: “I’m with Luke.”

 _Fuck_.

Scott slams his phone down, letting it ricochet across the floor. It lands upright to reveal a great big crack across the screen. His phone lights up again. More alerts. Taunting him. Brightening up the backdrop to highlight the damage.

So, there was a letter.

Before Luke and Emily, there was a letter. It had been a true work of artistic passion, his very first love letter (or so he thought at the time). It was his own solution to the tongue-tied incompetence he felt every time he was around Emily. Well, in fact, it was a solution he’d learned from Tessa, who often liked to write things down or prepare notes when she was struggling to articulate herself.

Scott had read and reread every word, measured with the perfect balance of feeling and restraint, openness and ambiguity, gravity and humour. It was going to be just the thing to win a girl’s heart. He was going to win _this_ girl’s heart. Except, there’s never really a good moment to give a girl a letter like that. At least, Scott never found the moment. The moment was intercepted by Luke’s rather more straightforward strategy of directly asking the girl out. And so the moment passed, the letter got buried somewhere in Scott’s mess of a room.

It’s as Scott reflects on the long-forgotten letter that he begins to question how it can possibly have made its way to Emily’s possession.

He storms off to Charlie’s room, pounding his fist furiously against the hardwood door.

“Scotty!” Charlie greets him.

“Have you been in my room?” he asks sharply.

“I don’t think my lungs could handle exposure to that much Axe body spray.” Charlie shrugs, before adding, “Mom cleaned in there earlier, though. Said she’d told you enough times to do it yourself and was sick of the sight of it.”

“Did she say anything? Like, take anything out of there?”

There’s a look of recognition in Charlie’s eyes that Scott immediately clocks, throwing all his weight against brother’s bedroom door to push it open. He winces at the pain of it, before demanding that his brother explain himself.

“Tell me!”

“She found a bunch of papers, old school papers. Me and Danny were laughing at your weird notes, and then we found your little love letter. And, you know, we’re romantics at heart, Scotty, and we wanted to give you a little push.”

“No. No, no, no. You didn’t,” Scott replies, eyes wide and utterly seized by panic.

Even Scott himself doesn’t see it coming when he pounces on Charlie, pushing his weight down to the ground and pummelling his brother with his one good arm.

Through gritted teeth, his voice muffled by Scott’s weight on top of him, Charlie calls out, “Scott! Scott! Stop. I don’t want to beat up a wounded child, but if you don’t stop—” Scott’s fist lands again. “—hitting me, I will! SCOTT!”

Danny bursts into the room next, his voice booming as he says, “What the fuck?”

He pulls Scott off Charlie with ease, the youngest brother still throwing his limbs around in resistance as they come apart.

“He’s not too happy about the whole ‘Mission: Find Scotty a Girlfriend’ thing, turns out,” Charlie explains as Danny’s eyes move between his two younger brothers.

“It’s my best friend’s girl!” Scott barks.

His brothers look at each other with a grimace. “I admit,” Danny sighs, letting Scott go free as he seems to settle, “there may have been a lack of research.”

“You think?”

Alma appears at the doorway then, taking in the scruffy state of Scott and Charlie. “I don’t care who started it. You’re grounded,” she says, and there’s not an inch of room to argue before she walks off again.

“Well, I can never show my face again anyway, so what does it matter?” Scott remarks, looking his brothers in the eye with pointed, barely-contained rage lacing every word.

“When did you get so dramatic?” Danny retorts, rolling his eyes.

Scott shakes his head and storms off at that, slamming his bedroom door so hard that the house shakes.

 

*

 

The next day, he skips morning practice.

He gets dressed for school, but reroutes to the diner by the arena. No one else comes this way except the kids he knows from the rink so it feels safe to hole up here for a while.

Scott slides into a corner booth and orders himself a glass of chocolate milk and a donut, refusing to care about his coach’s dietary suggestions in the moment. It’s comfort food. Not that he’s likely to feel any small sense of comfort after Danny and Charlie’s latest hare-brained scheme. Really, all it does is make him feel sick.

It’s 12pm before anyone but the waitress takes any notice of him. Even she seems to sense his thunderous mood, taking her time collecting his empty plate, hesitating with her forced-polite, “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

But then he catches sight of someone approaching in his periphery.

When he looks up to see Tessa standing there, a wave of immediate relief washes over him. Other than his brothers, who he never wants to see again, and Luke, who he can’t look in the eye right now, she’s probably his best friend in the world. And some little part of him knows that she’ll make it okay. She’s a fixer. She always knows how to help. Cool, calm and collected Tessa.

“Hey,” he tries to say, but his voice eludes him.

She understands the attempt and replies, “Hey, kiddo.”

The nickname makes him smile reflexively, a warm reminder of every time she’d insisted that the childish moniker had to go both ways. (“Why am I _your_ kiddo? There’s not even a year between us and I’m mature for my age, you know,” she’d insisted once, aged nine and three quarters to his 10 and a half. The “unlike you” of it was implied, but Tessa was Tessa and she left those kinds of petty comments to subtext.)

“Missed you at training,” she admits softly, sliding into the booth opposite him before mirroring his body language: elbow on the table, chin rested on the heel of her hand. “It turns out, it’s quite hard to practice your straight line lift without a partner.”

“Are you mad?”

“No.”

“I couldn’t face it, T. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you know? If you’re done.”

It takes him a minute to know what to say to that, studying the way she presses her lips tightly together as her eyes drop to the ground. He feels hyper-aware, suddenly, of the generosity of her words, remembering every single opportunity she’d passed up for him – for them. His hand reaches across the table, covering hers, as he insists, “No, that’s not it.”

“I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t be mad at you, if you were.” She examines his expression carefully; he can feel her eyes scanning his face.

“It’s not about… any of that stuff, Tess. I promise,” he tells her, his voice void of anything resembling reassurance. He sounds broken and defeated, despite his best efforts.

“I called Dan. After you didn’t show up, I asked him—”

“Tess—”

“—if you were okay, and he told me. About _Emily_ ,” she says, only mouthing the name. Scott nods, grateful she knows without him having to tell her, despite his lingering frustration with his brothers.

“How’d you find me?”

“I’ve known you since I was six years old. Hate to tell you this but you’re not such an enigma.”

“Break it to me gently, why don’t you.”

“Scott.” She leans in, earning all of his attention. His hand stops stirring the straw of his chocolate milk just to listen. “Are you okay?”

He takes in a deep breath, looking at her as though her eyes are where all of the answers lie. Considering the question carefully, Scott’s gaze drops as he admits, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

“It’ll be fine, Scott.”

Scott groans. “I wrote her a fucking ridiculous love letter,” he spits out, clapping a hand to his face to cover his eyes.

“You wrote her a love letter,” Tessa repeats, and it’s said so warmly, he can’t help but blush. She sounds almost impressed, or proud, or something Scott can’t quite put his finger on. He can tell she’s surprised, but then she considers it a little more and says with mock outrage, “And here I thought I was special.”

“What?” His head snaps up to face her.

“Well,” she starts, breathing in as if bracing for a big reveal. Her smile puts him at ease though, fondness breaking out across her face as she continues, “Don’t you remember, ‘To the best partner ever, here is my picture’?”

Scott laughs, loosening up at once. “I forgot about that.”

“You’ve always been old school.” The way she says it makes him sit a little taller in his seat, his posture straightening up. “And, Scott, you didn’t do anything wrong, okay? I know you’re sitting here worrying about Emily and Luke, but you never meant for anyone to actually read the letter, right?”

“Of course not!”

“Then don’t beat yourself up. If she knows you at all, she’ll be flattered that you would feel that way about her.”

Scott just groans again, loud and dramatic, his face sinking into his hands.

“Have you spoken to her at all yet?” Tessa asks tentatively, delicate care taken over every syllable. Her words are quiet and she leans in as though to protect his confidentiality.

With his face still covered, he shakes his head.

“Why don’t you just say that you _did_ feel that way, once, but you’re over it now?” she suggests, light and airy, as though taking on the kind of casual tone that he’ll need to adopt for the awkward though inevitable conversation with Emily.

“Like she’s gonna believe me.”

“So, say…” She thinks about it, pausing mid-sentence to let the thought run its course, long enough for Scott to look up, at last, out of curiosity. “Say you’re seeing someone else.”

Scott’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?”

“What if we pretend… we’re together?” Tessa proposes.

“T, why would you even want to do that?”

“Well, for starters, it would drive Ethan crazy. Or at least… maybe it would. I don’t know. I was just thinking, if he thinks you and I are a thing, he’ll realize how much he likes me and want to get back together.”

Scott’s head tilts to one side, a smirk creeping into his expression. “So you’d be using me?”

“It could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Tessa gives a coy little shrug, rendering him speechless for possibly the first time in his life, then she slides his glass across the table to bring it towards her and sips. “What do you think?”

“Are we gonna, like, kiss… and stuff?”

Savouring the taste of the chocolate milk on her tongue, Tessa contemplates the question for a moment and then nods. “If the situation calls for it. We want it to be believable. Besides, we already have to do that kind of stuff for skating. This’ll just be… off the ice.”

Scott leans back in his seat as the idea starts to sink in.

 _She’s serious_.


	2. the performance begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It happens naturally. They don't discuss what they should and shouldn’t do beyond their initial talk; instinct takes over. When they walk through the school gates, their hands find each other as easily as when they stroke out onto the ice together. There's a nod and a smile, and the performance begins._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for giving this a go if you're reading! Time for a little dose of fake dating...

The morning after their conversation, held over a single glass of chocolate milk, Tessa and Scott talk things over during training. As they run through their programs (the choreography is already muscle memory, but Suzanne is always making little adjustments), they figure out the finer points of their agreement in broken whispers. They barely move their mouths to speak, uttering words through tight smiles, every word a shorthand that only they know.

In the end, the story is simple. All the little rumours that have persisted over the years? They're true now.

It doesn't need too much embellishment, their lie. They have the story of their first kiss to fall back on – the way he'd been ready with a bouquet of flowers the moment she'd stepped off the ice after her solo, the way she'd almost sneezed when she'd brought them up to her nose, the way they'd stared at each other in nervous anticipation. They have the looks they've shared inside nearly a decade's worth of dances. They have an exclusive intimacy that no one else understands: protective and unwavering and so remarkably tactile.

It's Tessa who spells that out for him.

He relaxes as she does. The flashes of Emily that fill his mind – imagining the look on her face when they see each other again – start to pass. Memories of the letter start to drift to the back of his mind. Even though the whole plan revolves around it, he starts to forget. Because Tessa seems so sure. He can look in her eyes and know that everything's going to be okay; she can make it okay. All the disaster scenarios that had kept him up the night before begin to drift from his mind. Instead, there's just Tessa, and the knowledge that he could put his whole life in her hands and trust her to keep it safe.

As they skate in hold, running through the footwork of their tango, she continues. “So, we’ll just hold hands at school, no different than we do when we’re skating, and–"

“And you can eat lunch with me. If you like,” he offers, cutting her off.

There’s a pause in conversation as they focus on their next steps before, quietly, he hears, “Yeah. That works.”

He nods, as if to confirm the plan, already searching his mind for other ways they can keep everyone fooled. Everyone, but above all, Emily. The distraction causes him to lose his footing but the tight grip he has on Tessa, and her sure-footedness, keeps him upright – just about.

“I’ll kiss you by your locker or something,” she suggests, pausing to spin out of their hold until he dips her. There’s a delay in the movement; he misses his cue by a millisecond, his mouth hanging just a little agape before she clarifies, “When she’s there. You know, just to make sure that… everyone knows.”

Tessa’s looking up at him, eyes unblinking, as he leans over her. He can feel her probing gaze scanning his face, searching for those micro-expressions that she’s learned so studiously to read his reaction. How are you supposed to react when your best friend offers to kiss you? There’s no rulebook. And he finds, despite everything that tells him this is a terrible, terrible idea, his overriding feeling is one of profound curiosity.

Scott takes a deep breath before pulling her back up again. As soon as she’s on her feet again, she cheerily continues, “I’d say we only need to pretend for… a month or so.”

“A month or so?”

“Give or take.”

He considers the idea, and then suddenly remembers, "You have to come on the ski trip, at least.” The choreography pulls them apart with a run of synchronised, non-touching steps, before he can continue with added insistence: “Everyone's going! And it's right after our Grand Prix so we can celebrate our win on the slopes!"

Tessa groans dramatically. "It'll just be a bunch of hormonal teenagers left unsupervised."

"Right, no no one's gonna believe that any girl in her right mind would let her boyfriend go alone."

"Scott." He can sense her eye-roll, even if he can’t see it, as they dance cheek to cheek.

"T, if you don’t go, I'll have to third wheel Luke and Emily the whole time," he says, changing tact with a heavy dose of desperate pleading. "Please. If you love me at all—"

"Fine," she breathes out, exasperated. Her answer steps over the end of his sentence and there's a moment where her eyes go ever so slightly wide, before she appears to brush it off and her expression resets to neutral.

They finish out the rest of the sequence before the music dies away, with Suzanne closing in. As soon as they release each other from hold, Scott's hands move to her shoulders, locking eyes with her as he lets out a puff of relief. "Oh, thank God!"

Tessa laughs it off, brushing her hand down his arm in a gesture he finds reassuring, before they turn to listen to their coach.

With only a brief, offhand comment regarding their unusual lack of focus, Suzanne throws out a few suggestions on how to sharpen the program. She and Tessa go back and forth, discussing the intention of the piece and how best to capture that, while Scott eagerly nods along. He glances from one to the other like he’s watching a tennis match play out, until eventually chiming in with a succinct, shrewd assertion of his own. The next time they run through the steps, they instantly find a cleaner flow through the key points.

It’s a productive practice, by all accounts. They’ve got a plan and they’ve got a program, and Scott’s already starting to feel a little more himself. Thinking of the looming school day doesn’t send the same shiver down his spine that it had as he’d wolfed down his cereal before training.

As the session ends, it proves to be the turning point of their sweet little lie.

Suzanne, Tessa and Scott sit in a row as they unlace their skates, with the two girls discussing a book that one had given the other in minute detail. Tessa’s caught up in a reflective dialogue about whether the main character should have gone back to her husband after all, with Suzanne making encouraging noises to all of her half-considered insights, and then suddenly she stops. A silence settles.

Tessa pulls off her boots, holding them with an index and middle finger hooked around the edge of each one respectively as she rises from her seat. She moves to stand over him, looking down with a curious, thoughtful look in her eye. The hesitation lingers. It lasts long enough for Scott to sense her attention and pause, his fingers caught up in black laces, to look up at her. His eyes ask the question; her lips answer it.

She leans down and kisses him squarely on the mouth as Suzanne watches. A trial run, perhaps. An early start. It’s a delicate gesture, steady and sure – at least, in terms of appearances, and then she whispers, “I’ll get changed and meet you in the lobby?”

He processes the words on a delay, slowly blinking up and unable to even stammer out a syllable. In the back of his mind, he knows it's important for him to act casual, like their kiss isn't so surprising to him, but Suzanne seems too busy reeling to take notice of him anyway. He only manages a nod and then watches her disappear, two skates in her hand and a spring in her step.

 

*

 

The rest of it happens naturally. They don't discuss what they should and shouldn’t do beyond their initial conversation; instinct takes over. When they walk through the school gates, their hands find each other as easily as when they stroke out onto the ice together. There's a nod and a smile, and the performance begins.

Their big moment comes and goes quickly. Shooting quick glances at Emily and Ethan, who are loitering at different ends of the same hallway, Tessa moves onto the front of her feet before slowly pulling him into a kiss – tender and sweet – before saying, “So, we’ll meet at my locker at lunch to see Miss Shaw?”

He nods.

She squeezes his hand – just once, but tight – and then places her hand on the strap of her bag to head off. A strawberry sweetness lingers on his lips even as she goes. As Emily starts approaching, Tessa’s already out of sight, but he savours the taste she’s left on his mouth and steels himself for what’s about to come.

“Hey, can we talk?” Emily says without so much as a hello.

“Uh, sure. Let’s–” He gestures to an empty classroom, leading her inside. Just barely inside. Their silhouettes face each other in the window of the door.

“So, your letter,” she starts awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other and barely making eye contact. “I, uh, Scott… I don’t know what to say. I haven’t told Luke but–”

“Don’t tell him, please. Listen, Emily, I, uh…” He’s no less awkward. “Can we forget it? I wrote that,” he laughs drily to himself, even though it’s so painfully unfunny he can barely catch a breath, “a _long_ time ago. And, honestly, we’re friends. I’m completely, totally over it. I’m embarrassed that you even read it. It was, uh…”

“You didn’t send it?”

“My, uh… My brothers.” He winces before giving a heavy shrug. “They’re real pranksters.”

“They’re real dicks,” she replies sharply.

“Yeah,” he concedes. “And the truth is, I… I’m with Tessa. Tessa Virtue, my skating partner.”

“Yeah, I saw that you guys were… something out there.” She points vaguely in the direction of the door they came through, her brows knitting together to form a deep-defined web of lines on her forehead. “Since… when? Luke didn’t mention. Isn’t she with that Ethan guy who’s in our math class?”

“No,” he snaps, before steadying out his tone to answer the rest of her questions. “I haven’t told Luke yet. It’s new. Kinda new.” He overdoes the casual act just a tad but it goes unnoticed before he manages to self-correct, finding an answer that rolls off the tongue naturally. “I’ve liked her for a while but I didn’t know she… felt the same.”

“Huh,” is all the response he gets. “Well, okay then. So, we’re… good?”

“I’m good. You good?”

“Yeah,” she answers, the cautious uncertainty of her tone undermining it.

Nevertheless, he uses that as his out and pulls the door open immediately. Luke’s heading down the halls just at that moment, his eyes searching around like a lost sheep until he lands on the two of them. His face lights up and immediately he’s speeding towards them.

“So, I just heard a crazy rumour,” Luke starts, curling his arm around Scott’s shoulders with a smug grin all over his face. There’s a brief moment where he pauses to greet Emily with a kiss and a, “Hey, babe,” before he turns his attention back to Scott.

Uneasy, Scott just mutters, “Oh yeah?”

“You and Tess?”

“Word gets around fast,” he remarks, putting on the performance of grumbling irritation and struggling not to let out a deep, suspicious sigh of relief. He leads the way as the trio all head to their first class of the day. (It’ll be scatty Mr. Bryant whose own attendance record is barely equal to Scott’s so there’s really no need to hurry.)

“So it’s true?”

Scott gives a lazy shrug.

“I knew it! I knew it was gonna happen eventually,” Luke declares, falling into stride between them as Emily moves to slide under his arm. He turns to his girlfriend and continues gloating, “Didn’t I tell you? Scott and Tess? Sure thing. I was convinced!”

Scott groans. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m glad you’re happy, Scotty. You deserve a nice girl. But mostly, I’m happy I was right.”

Scott just laughs, shaking his head to himself as he feels all the tension drain from his body.

“You gotta invite her to hang with us at lunch. I want to get to know your girl some more,” Luke insists, glancing at his own girlfriend for back-up. She nods along as he continues, “I have to know what won her over after all this time.”

“My handsome good looks? Sharp wit?”

“No, no,” Luke teases. “Can’t be it. We’ll have to ask her.”  

 _Tess_ , he thinks with a burst of overwhelming gratitude. He can always rely on Tess to get him out of a bind. It’s like nothing’s changed as he, Luke and Emily walk the halls together, commiserating about the English test they’ve resigned themselves to having to retake and running back through every play from their last hockey game.

It feels miraculously normal, like the letter never existed. All he has to do is keep this up for a little while and maybe, just maybe, he’s in the clear.  

 

*

 

After they find each other at lunch, Tessa and Scott walk hand-in-hand toward a tired conversation they've had what feels like a thousand times now, permission slips ready with Grand Prix dates marked out across them in the same black ballpoint pen. It’s Tessa’s handwriting – elegant and even and with looping letters that stand lean on the page – like always, like she’s been doing since the time Scott had accidentally written the wrong month on his.

The conversation is brief, rules and conditions having been established many times over, and their principal quickly signs the sheet. She's quick to flash a smile and say, "Bring back some gold for us, eh?"

Scott laughs awkwardly while Tessa musters a tight-lipped smile.

Once they’ve tucked their signed forms back into their bags – well, _bag_ , singular, since Tessa thought it best to take care of Scott’s as well as her own – they head to the cafeteria. Their hands find each other again without a word.

As soon as they open the double doors, all eyes fix on them. Luke is grinning like an eager puppy dog from across the room, sitting at the head of the same table they’ve frequented every day since they started high school. Emily’s beside him, her expression inscrutable but for a glimmer of unease. Then there’s Ethan, a few tables over, sitting on his chair backwards for no discernible reason, with a protein shake in his hands in lieu of a lunch tray. He shoots over a glance at Tessa, one that makes Scott feel compelled to step forward to block his view of her, and then turns his attention back to talking loudly to the group he’s sat with. The rest of them, made up evenly of boys and girls, are staring still. Despite being Scott’s age, they know Tessa better – she skipped a grade and dated one of their own on and off for a few months – hence the pointed direction of their over-familiar gawping.

“This is gonna be awful and we’re gonna hate it, but they’ll soon have some new gossip to blow us out of the headlines,” he whispers into her hair as they head in. It’s the same tone he uses when he wants to reassure her before their names are announced in competition. She turns her head to give a tight smile and a squeeze of the hand. _It’s okay. She’s okay._

In fact, it’s nice.

They sit down in the empty seats that Luke kept reserved for them. For a moment, there’s a weirdness, an unsteadiness in the air. And then it levels out. Luke comes out with some stupid story about a prank Scott had missed on his day off, before Emily rolls out her pointedly, sighing, “That’s absolute bullshit.”

“Yeah, it is. But he ditched me! I had to endure two straight hours of Mr. Gatier _on my own_ because he was ‘too sick’,” he gestures the quote marks to emphasize the point, “I, at least, get to pretend like he missed something fun.” He settles down briefly before leaning around Scott to ask, “Tess, you’re a nice, rule-following girl with what I imagine to be an impressive attendance record. What do you make of Scott flunking class?”

Unsure of what he’s about to hear, Scott turns to look at Tessa. She’s in the middle of chewing on a carrot stick as she considers her response. Eventually, she shrugs and says, with the perfect blend of sugariness and authenticity, “I’m just happy he’s feeling better now,” before rubbing soothing strokes up and down his back.

Knowing instantly his role in all of it, Scott directs a contented grin at Luke, who chuckles away. Across the table, on Luke’s other side, Emily smiles warmly at the two of them.

It all comes so easily.

Scott always thought hanging with Tessa at school would cramp his style but, quickly, he finds that he likes the way it feels to have his arm around her as they walk the halls. He likes the way she's there to laugh at his big, dumb jokes, even if she’s faking it to sell their lie. He likes that she lets him steal little pieces of her lunch, trading off her string cheese for his chocolate pudding.

Things like idly playing with each other's hair, and finishing each other’s sentences, and walking with his hand in the back pocket of her jeans should feel forced and strange. Instead, they come easy.

And it is a little surprising that no one seems to question it, Scott considers in the midst of a mid-lesson daydream, but given the circumstances, he’s thankful. He doesn't have a lot of options. If Emily's ever going to believe he's moved on from his stupid, embarrassing crush, Tessa's plan is the best option he has. When pretending to be a couple feels as easy as it does, though, he stops worrying.

 

*

 

It’s a week and a half into their charade when Scott talks Tessa into going to a house party. It’s one of the boys from the hockey team, so he has to go – and, as proves to be a consistently effective argument, he insists that, as his girlfriend, Tessa is expected to be there too.

Even though she sighs and insists she’s bringing her book, he senses that she’s not so mad about it really. There’s a smile hidden there. If he ignores the cynical raised eyebrow. Which he does.

The other giveaway that maybe she’s not so mad about going after all is that when he arrives at her house to pick her up, she walks to his car looking like something out of a magazine. There’s a hint of sparkle on her eyelids, a perfectly set wave to her hair, a blush polish on her nails – and then there’s the way her silky, flowing top matches her eyes: green, a gorgeous emerald green. It’s so striking, every other colour seems muted by comparison.

“You look… nice,” he manages. Just about.

“I? Okay. Thanks? You don’t sound too sure.”

He opens the door of his car for her, fumbling with the handle momentarily, before replying, “I’m… I’m sure.” Scott shakes it off. Whatever _it_ is. That flutter in his gut, something strange and unfamiliar.

Tessa laughs a little, getting in while he runs around to the other side.

It proves to be a quiet journey – unusually so, by their standards. Charlie had stolen his aux cord, so their usual singalongs are a no-go. Instead, a silence settles between them. Scott’s too caught up in his own head about the appropriate way to give a girl a compliment to really notice it, so it ends up being Tessa who caves first. She abruptly starts rambling on about how they need to change their lockscreens. She says it like it’s just occurred to her, then she digs out a picture that his cousin had taken at a competition the previous season: the two of them locked in a tight embrace to sync their breathing, his face buried in her neck with eyes closed.

They pull up at his teammate’s house but before they get out of the car, Tessa decides that for Scott’s phone, they need a new picture. She flips the phone's camera to the front view so they can take a cute, uber-coupley selfie. He pulls her in enthusiastically, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and their heads rest against each other instinctively. She hits the capture button a few times, closing the gap with each picture. On the last one, her smile moves to his cheek and transforms into a kiss. It's mushy as hell but that's what they're going for, at least. What sets this particular still apart, though, is the way Scott's expression has softened to a close-eyed, beaming smile that he hadn't even been aware of in the moment. That's the one.

"Look how cute we are," he says with a laugh, swiping through the camera roll. The live photos move as he scans through them, giving the effect of a flipbook, and when he gets back to the end and holds his finger down, the cheek kiss plays out like a video. “Pretty cute, eh?”

He makes it his wallpaper and then puts his phone away.

“You ready?” she asks, her voice meek and soft. He can tell she’s not, but she’s trying.

The way her eyes are looking across at him, big and bright and expectant, earns the broadest grin before he opens his hand wide to take hers. “Come on, T. Let’s do this.”

He leads her through the house, saying hello to almost every person they pass as she clings tightly to his hand. He never lets go for a minute, giving reassuring squeezes whenever he starts to notice her looking a little lost or left out. Every new face earns a smile, but then he moves so that she is no longer in his shadow and says, “This is my girlfriend, Tess.”

He says it with all the pride she deserves to hear. He can feel her eyes fixed on him as the words slip out and, every time he repeats it, Scott stands a little taller, states it a little more firmly. _This is my girlfriend, Tess_.

She says barely a word. It’s his crowd and his lie to tell.

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” she whispers to him once they’re settled amongst the crowd, sliding her hand from his to slip away. When he follows her gaze, he can see Ethan loitering by the stacks of red solo cups, his eyes fixed on Tessa in a way that makes Scott’s skin crawl. She continues approaching anyway, though – not quite getting close enough for him to talk to her, making him walk the rest of the way. Scott watches their interaction: the way the smarmy kid from his math class leans over Tessa, the way her eyes shift like she doesn’t want to look at him properly, the way he recoils at something she says.

He can’t look away.

Eventually, Luke pats him hard on the back to knock him out of his reverie. “You showed up! Finally!”

“So, what’s up with Tessa, huh? I wanna hear it,” one of the other hockey boys, Jay, starts heckling.

“What do you wanna know?” Scott asks, too eager to prove that he and Tessa have their story straight to pick up on the nature of the question. He’s defensive, but none of the half-cut hockey boys seem to pick up on that.

“How far?”

“Huh?”

“You two. How far’ve you gone? H on B? H on C? H up and down on P?”

Scott’s scrunching his face, half incredulous, half utterly confounded.

“He’s an innocent boy, Jay. Leave him alone,” Luke jumps in to say, and it’s just as well because Tessa suddenly sidles up to them, a drink in her hand for Scott.

“Molson?”

“Ah, thank you,” he says, giving a bright smile. It’s barely three quarters of a cup – he’s driving, after all – but he sips away like it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. “I am… happy to see you.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, her eyes lingering on him as though searching for her answer. A private smile passes between them before he wraps his arm around her neck, keeping her flush against him, with her back against his front. She moves her hands up to hold onto his forearm as it locks her tight inside his embrace.

As the boys find some other subject to talk about, Scott’s thoughts drift back to Ethan. She’d wanted so badly to make him jealous; that was her whole MO. With that in mind, he pulls her closer, if it’s possible, and kisses her temple and then her cheek, before sipping on the beer in his hand as he glances over at the other boy.

Not long into their car ride home, he dares to mention, “Saw you talking to Ethan earlier.” Scott doesn’t turn to look at her at all, keeping his eyes fixed ahead.

“He was kinda… mad that I didn’t call him back. He left me some messages,” Tessa explains, barely above a whisper.  

“You guys still talk on the phone?”

“Sometimes. Not as much as we used to.”

“He treated you badly, T,” he reminds her, and pointedly turns his head to give her a glare.

Tessa turns her face away, looking straight ahead. “Eyes on the road.”

“It’s not healthy, Tessa. He’s not a good dude. I don’t know why you let him walk all over you.”

“Says the guy who’s pining for his best friend’s girl.”

He can tell she doesn’t mean it. He can tell that the words slipped out of her grasp before she could pull them back. But it still cuts. It cuts deeper than he thought possible, leaving Scott to wonder if there’s ever been a time that she’s spoken so sharply to him before.

They’re quiet for the rest of the ride home, the sting of it lingering for the duration of the journey back to Tessa’s. When he pulls up, she turns her whole body to face his seat, rushing to say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m just tired.”

He shrugs. “It’s okay, Tess. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You can’t help who you like,” she replies, not daring to look up from the centre console. There’s something so resolute about it that breaks Scott’s heart.

“I know, kiddo. I know.” He reaches out a hand to settle over hers in her lap. It earns a quick response as her fingers move to slide between his, seeking out a familiar grasp. “But, listen, you know… when I wrote that letter, I really thought I was crazy about Em. I thought it was Romeo and Juliet stuff.”

“They both died, Scott,” Tessa’s quick to remind him.

He laughs fondly and says, “Yeah, so, thank God I was wrong, eh? Could’ve ended up–” He gestures a line across his throat, adding a sharp, phlegmy sound effect to emphasize his fatal inference.

She shakes her head at him but he knows she’s trying not to surrender to a smile. Her cheeks are sitting high as she bites on her bottom lip, the corners of her eyes faintly creasing.

“The point is, I thought, back then, I’m _never_ gonna like anyone as much as I like this girl.” He rolls his eyes, turning away from her to escape the self-enforced humiliation of his admission. “I thought I’d never get over her. And then she and Luke happened, and everything changed, you know? They’re this perfect pair, like salt and pepper or… Salt ‘n’ Pepa. But in a romantic way,” he hurriedly clarifies. “They’re ‘Emily and Luke’. And once I got used to it, I really… stopped seeing her that way. That’s why I don’t want some stupid mistake from months ago to ruin things for everyone.”

Scott drags a gentle thumb over the back of her hand in soothing strokes. He lets himself take a breath, his mouth tight in the build-up to his point as Tessa waits patiently.  

“He loves her so much, T. Boys don’t always talk about girls the way Luke talks about her. He’d kick my ass if he thought I was trying to fuck it up. And seeing the way they are, it made me realize… that’s _it_. That’s what I want, that’s what you deserve.” He gives her hand a squeeze, the kind they usually reserve for a fall or a misstep. It’s direct reassurance. “You deserve someone who’d kick his best friend’s butt to defend your honour and who talks about you like he can’t believe he got so lucky.”

His point, in the end, is simple: “That’s not that idiot kid back there, is it? It’s not fucking Ethan Tremblay.”

Scott draws his hand from hers to reach up to her cheek, moulding it to the side of her face as he twists his whole body against the resistance of the seat belt to look at Tessa directly. Delivering every word with measure, he promises her, “If you give it time, you’ll get there. Like I did. And, eventually, you’ll find someone new, someone who deserves you – at least more than he does.”

He sighs. “I know you want to make him jealous. Fuck, I want to make him jealous! But I think you should do it as cruel, cruel revenge, T. Not to make him realize what he’s missing. He had his chance to realize how awesome you are.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” she protests quietly, but her face moves to his palm as though caught in a magnetic field.

“I know,” he reassures her. “Just think about it, eh?”

“Okay.”

“And I know you’re gonna beat yourself up over what you said to me earlier, but don’t. I don’t want you to worry about it, okay? I know you didn’t mean it.”

Tessa glances down. “I feel bad.”

“Would you feel better if I said something mean to you?”

She nods.

Scott thinks about it for a moment and then scrunches his face up into an exaggerated grimace. “That beer you got me earlier? ...Warm. What kind of fake girlfriend brings her fake boyfriend a warm beer? Gotta work on that, T.”

“You’re an idiot.” She nudges him in the shoulder, more for the smug grin he wears than the gentle teasing of his reply.

They go quiet again before he softly says, “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow?”

There’s an affirmative nod before she leans into the footwell to grab her purse. She hops out of his car, turning back with one hand on the door to reply, “Bright and early.”

Scott watches her walk up to the door – never glancing back at him – before turning his key in the engine.


	3. as you wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _One day, she questions why he’s making so much effort when there’s not really anyone else around; it’s not like they’re at school, after all. His eyebrows draw together as he considers her words but, really, there’s no answer. “I’m just having fun with it, T,” he realizes as he says it._

Owing to the distraction that their budding fake relationship provides, Scott finds that the first Junior Grand Prix event of the season creeps up on them faster than he anticipates. Nevertheless, they go into it feeling confident.

Their practices become more consistent than ever, in part thanks to Scott’s renewed commitment. He’s been enjoying skating again – truly, completely loving it, the way he used to as a kid, when he and Tessa would rock up to regional events and, despite being the smallest pair there, wipe the floor with all the competition. He finds himself counting down until their next practice and waking up raring to go every morning, often getting up before anyone else in the house and leaving a path of destruction in his wake for them to find. Alma soon decides it’s easier to set the alarm a little earlier and diffuse some of the chaos as it unfolds, while Joe opts for avoidance tactics.

When Scott gets to the rink every day, usually he’s there before Tessa. He’ll be stretching his legs out or chatting to Paul, and it’s fine and dandy, but when Tessa shows up, he beams. Every day he likes to come up with new, creative ways to make a show of affection the moment she arrives (a little skip and a run, sliding to her feet on his knees, a little serenade – it escalates with each passing day). Paul will usually groan and say, “Let’s stay focused. Work to do.” Scott just smirks, but he notices that it always makes Tessa blush, her head shrinking into her neck as she shyly follows his lead out onto the ice. When he squeezes her hand, though, she always squeezes back.

One day, she questions why he’s making so much effort when there’s not really anyone else around; it’s not like they’re at school, after all. His eyebrows draw together as he considers her words but, really, there’s no answer. “I’m just having fun with it, T,” he realizes as he says it.

Tessa bows her head but he still catches the way she smiles.

He can’t resist teasing her: “See, you are too! I can tell.”

“You’re just trying to distract me from getting things done here. Come on, or I’ll ask to go over the spins an extra few times,” Tessa warns him, putting on her very serious and not-to-be-messed-with voice. He pulls a face, but instantly puts his arms out in hold – ready for the next run-through. One of many.

They’ve been devotedly honing both of their programs with their coaches in the build-up to the first real competition of the season. They’ve pinned their hopes on a podium position – though secretly, in Scott’s mind, he’s gunning for gold.

Despite all of that renewed enthusiasm for ice dance, he still spends most of the plane journey to Ljubljana moaning about the hockey game they’re missing. “It’s not just missing the game – I can’t even get updates!” he bemoans as Tessa taps through the in-flight entertainment options. Noticing the way she’s persistently jabbing at the screen, he says, “Are you looking for something in particular?”

“Not really. _The Princess Bride_ always, but anything that’s not… boring or cheesy,” she replies, never taking her eyes off the screen in front of her. She flicks past some early Nicholas Sparks movies and a documentary about trees and another Marvel blockbuster, never lingering on one too long.

Scott smiles as she scrunches her nose in disgust at another option. “ _The Princess Bride_ sounds cheesy.”

“I actually think you’d really like it,” Tessa pushes back. She turns to look at him before quietly adding, “It’s really funny, like you.”

Distracted by his own train of thought, he’s already moved on. “Do they have _Bloodsport_?”

Tessa just groans.

“Best. Movie. Ever!”

Shaking her head, she says, “How are we even friends?”

“You love me, T. And we’re not _just_ friends anymore, remember.” He finds her hand between them and locks his fingers with hers before swinging their grasped hands a little. There’s no need for it; Suzanne and Kate, who are chaperoning the trip, are seated separately about eight rows back.

Peering around Scott, who’s taken the middle seat, to get a look at the person the other side of him, Tessa whispers, “I don’t think the woman in 4C is too concerned about the nature of our relationship, Scott.”

“Practice makes perfect, though,” he replies with a smile, not giving much thought to the implications of it.

A little crinkle appears between Tessa’s eyebrows before she replies, just as chirpily, “Let’s hope so – for this Grand Prix.”

 

*

 

The day before their competition, they’re practicing their tango when one of the other coaches approaches Suzanne at the boards. Scott and Tessa only notice when they finish their run-through, turning back to see the two women in deep conversation, though their eyes remain fixed on the skaters. Instantly, Tessa recognizes her, nudging Scott urgently as she says, “Marina Zueva. She’s the coach at Canton.”

As soon as he hears the name, he doesn’t need to be told.

“D’you think she’s trying to steal Suze away?” Scott jokes, watching the conversation unfold with curiosity.

The two kids wait it out, giving their coach a questioning look that goes unanswered.

Eventually, Suzanne gestures them both over. Marina is silent beside her as she explains, “Guys, this is Marina. She’s the head coach at Arctic Edge, the main school over in Michigan. She’s been watching your short dance and offered a few ideas on how you could improve the authenticity of the piece, as well as some of the technical elements.” As she speaks, Suzanne glances nervously at Marina a few times, as though searching for confirmation that she’s explaining correctly.

Scott notices Tessa instantly light up at the news, awed by the sudden opportunity to receive feedback from such a renowned coach; she even retrieves the notebook that she’d left on the boards, readying herself with a pen as attention turns to their new acquaintance. Taking this as her cue, Marina then interrupts with a notably abrupt manner and begins to very directly outline exactly where they’re going wrong, making no bones about it, before concluding, “You take my advice or not, makes no difference to me.”

She then suggests that they adjust their next run-through accordingly, and watches carefully as it plays out. Scott’s body goes rigid under her scrutinous gaze but, as always, once Tessa’s hand moves to take his, he relaxes into it. They go through the steps, allowing her fresh feedback to inform every movement. It’s a technically complex piece, filled with the potential for mistakes, and yet they keep their control, they keep their heads and, with Tessa’s carefully transcribed notes to fall back on, let the music carry them through the choreography.

Once it’s over, Marina comments, more to Suzanne than either of them, “They take well to instruction. This impresses me.” Then she walks away without offering even a hint of half-hearted pleasantries, leaving Scott, Tessa and Suzanne to look at one another, utterly bemused by the entire interaction.

They quickly go back to their usual practice routine, but Marina’s feedback carries weight; it stays with them, the precise evaluation remaining at the front of their minds. Suzanne points out their improved execution on video playback that she takes as they go over the steps, remarking on the notably sharper turns. When it comes to the real thing, only two days later, the program feels different – grander, somehow. It seems to sweep the audience along with it, despite the obscurity of the music and the disconnect between the nationalities of the skaters, the music and the crowd.

Scott, unequivocally and generously, puts it down to Marina. He thinks about every step just the way she’d said – “Movement must be sharp, with intent” – and he knows for certain when it’s over that it’s the best they’ve ever performed. Not just this program, but any.

After they finish, he catches sight of the Canton coach watching in the stands. Her face is unreadable – mouth tight, face otherwise neutral – but she’s watching. She doesn’t take her eyes off them the entire time Scott’s looking up. Eventually, he gives a polite smile – his attempt at a thank you – before turning back to sweep Tessa up in celebration.

They go into the free dance in first place. Though it’s what they’d aimed for, Scott finds himself not quite believing it.

Their free program is a grand, sweeping romance packed with emotion to contrast the fiery passion of the previous day’s performance. It’s the perfect mix of Tessa and Suzanne, in Scott’s mind, exemplifying the way the two women are able to tell a story through only movement. He plays his part, but it’s Tessa who sells the story: a young couple figuring out their love for each other, naive kids who could fall in love.  

The whole free program rushes by in a euphoric haze and, honestly, he thinks it’s a miracle that he remembers all of his steps because he gets so caught up in the moment they’re creating and the way Tessa is gliding, as though floating through the air, around him. It makes him want the dance never to end, their few minutes on the ice now not seeming long enough. Every lift soars with the swell of the music, the footwork dances along the melody like it’s second nature, and their spins seem to move effortlessly together, justifying the excess of spin practice they’ve endured in the build-up.

For a moment, he’s so caught up in the feeling of the dance, he loses his footing amidst a transition. The stumble almost brings him to the floor – but then Tessa’s there, steadying him. She guides him smoothly back into the choreography, her hand lingering a second too long just to provide reassurance before they break apart for their non-touching step sequence.

He finds himself missing her touch instantly. He forgets to paint on the lovelorn expression that he’s been told to wear, not realizing it’s already there. He can feel his heart racing as the music reaches its crescendo.

In the midst of the ending, as the music softens for one last short sequence of steps, they find themselves utterly wrapped up in their own performance.

At least that how he thinks it happens.

A kiss. A light brush of their lips instead of the almost that it was meant to be, that it always had been in training. It’s not the first time he’s kissed her, nor the second, but it still gives him that strange and heady sensation that rarely lasts quite so intensely beyond a first.

Their stumble places them second overall. Silver.

“Almost,” he huffs out in the kiss and cry. There’s a resigned shrug at the end of it before he adds, “You were incredible, T. I’m so proud of you.”

“Proud of you,” she says, smiling back as she pats his leg over and over.

The buzz of their success – they’d simply set their sights on a podium spot, after all – reignites something in Scott instantly. He finds a deep well of fierce belief and determination filling up inside of himself. It prompts him to lean close and whisper in Tessa’s ear, “We’ll make it gold next time, T. And we’ll get to the Grand Prix Final.”

Tessa draws back to get a good look at him, her eyes studying his with intent fascination. Her gaze feels delicate and deliberate, brushing over his expression so tenderly it stirs a shy, bashful smile – irrepressible, like a giggle that can’t be contained when someone gently tickles that most sensitive spot. It almost makes him feel embarrassed, but he can’t help but be glad she’s seeing it: the genuine joy he feels to be sharing this with her now, a feeling he’d forgotten over the months of their off-season, especially after a relatively disappointing previous year.

“I love seeing you excited about this again,” she tells him eventually, her voice certain and brimming with pride.  

He gives a big, cheesy grin just to ham it up for her, then pulls Tessa and Suzanne into a big, messy group hug.

 

*

 

"If you're gonna be my boyfriend, you really ought to know _The Princess Bride_ ," Tessa decides the day after they get back home as they're sat having lunch together, before outlining all of the reasons why any boy she dates would have a detailed knowledge of her favourite film. "Just like I watched _Bloodsport_ for you. And that's how I know I will never watch _Bloodsport_ again."

His mouth drops open. "When did you?"

"Last night. My parents had an event to go to, so Jordan and I rented it," she explains with a shrug, leaning back in her chair as she finishes the last of his chocolate pudding. "And then we watched _The Devil Wears Prada_ after because, umm, it's really not an enjoyable film."

Scott struggles to articulate himself for a moment after her revelation, and then says, almost to himself, "You watched _Bloodsport_ for me."

"Well, you're my _boyfriend_ , Scott." She keeps her voice low, her eyes scanning the cafeteria cautiously. Tessa says the word like it doesn't quite sit right, emphasizing it and widening her eyes as if to remind him of the lie contained within the word. Their little white lie.

"Yeah." Scott straightens up a little. "Are you free tonight? We could have dinner and watch _The Princess Bride_ at my house. I think my mom's making your favorite."

"Garlic chicken?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," she says, her face brightening up at that. "I'll meet you by your locker after English class?"

"Awesome."

 

*

 

Later, after the film's over and he's attempted a series of progressively ridiculous and loud Andre the Giant impressions, Scott dares to ask, "So, did Ethan watch _The Princess Bride_ with you then?" He asks it quietly, his words laced with a tentative curiosity.

Tessa's smile slips away, her eyes dropping to the floor. She shakes her head.

"I thought that was a mandatory part of dating Miss Tessa Virtue."

When she doesn't say a word, he attempts to rescue her from the stifling silence with another quote from her favorite film, another impression. And when she asks if there are any leftovers she can beg, he stands up and beams at her, taking her plate with three little words: "As you wish." At that, she brightens again instantly.

Alma's still in the kitchen when Scott comes in and, without a word, he goes over to the dish on the side and starts portioning out a little of everything. She watches for a minute before saying, "I already piled your plate high because I know what you're like. You're still hungry?" There's a raised eyebrow waiting for him when he looks up.

Scott shrugs.

"I think it's nice. You and Tessa," his mom then starts abruptly, changing the subject without warning. His eyes flash up at her again before she continues, "She's always been a sweetheart, a good influence on you." Alma takes a deep breath. "But you really have to look after her, because she's your friend too, right? And you kids've been partners forever."

He feels unsteady as he's suddenly faced with the reality of lying to his family. There's such caution in his mother's eyes, he doesn't know how he's going to explain this whole situation when it ends. Because he and Tessa will be fine after their 'break-up', that unspoken inevitability that they haven't really talked about; they'll be the same as they always were, if not closer than ever thanks to the shared secret of it all, and that's going to make no sense to anyone around them.

"If you mess things up, that's not going to be a small deal."

"Mom, I—"

"Scott," she starts, pausing for a sigh so heavy, he feels the weight of it. "I know _you_ think you're doing the right thing by her, but I just want you to be careful. Be smart."  

Natural impulse compels him to get defensive. He fights it off, instead nodding obediently.

Scott heads back into the lounge, where Tessa's sat cross-legged on the floor, her eyes scanning the rest of his family's DVD collection, and hands over the modest serving that he's carefully portioned out. "You're the best," she tells him with a self-conscious giggle, her hand resting on his arm as she takes the plate back with the other.

Scott feels himself blush, the flash of self-consciousness flaring right down to his neck.

The moment is broken rather suddenly when Scott's brothers come bounding into the room in the middle of an animated conversation. The two older boys are too caught up in an antagonistic back-and-forth about the merits of certain hockey players in their fantasy draft to notice Scott and Tessa right away. When they do, they stop in their tracks and look from one to the other, frozen on the spot.

"Tessa."

"Danny. Charlie. Hey."

"Scott?"

"I thought you were out tonight?" he replies brusquely, his hand rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as Tessa looks between the boys, her fork suspended in her mouth as she rests the plate in her lap.

"We didn't know you had company," Danny teases, the sentence drawing up at the end, as though it's a question.

"We're just watching a movie."

Seeming to sense Scott's awkwardness, Tessa jumps in to say, "You can join us!"

"What movie are you watching?" Danny asks.

All eyes are on Scott as his mouth hangs open, unsure of how to answer. A silent conversation passes between skating partners before Tessa jumps in to say, "We were just about to decide." She gestures her head in the direction of the Moir family DVD pile.

"You don't have to—" Scott starts.

Danny gives his baby brother a firm, not entirely welcome pat on the back. "We'd love to!"

"Why don't we all decide together, eh, Tess?" Charlie suggests, pulling his boots off and shuffling to sit the other side of Tessa as Danny follows his lead and settles next to Scott, sandwiching them in. (They don't need to catch Scott's eye-roll to know it happens.)

"Wh—"

His protest is cut off by his brothers' enthusiastic suggestions.

After a while, Charlie says, "Sorry, Tess, these might not be your thing."

"They all sound better than _Bloodsport_ ," she concedes, placing her hand flat on Scott's back to console him for the jibe before it's even spoken. "But what about… Harry Potter?"

"Which one?" Danny asks, picking up one of the films casually to turn it over and read the blurb on the back of the case.

"The third one," Tessa and Scott reply in unison.

Charlie laughs. "Why the third one?"

Tessa looks at Scott and a smile passes between them before he explains, "Tess always says there are two types of people: people who say _Prisoner of Azkaban_ is the best Harry Potter film and people who are wrong."

"Well, I'd hate to be wrong," Danny laughs, shrugging as he cracks open the box to pick out the disc.

They settle down together, the four of them sat on the carpet with their backs propped against the sofa. There's a blanket strewn over Tessa and Scott's knees, one that he'd brought over when she'd shivered midway through their first film of the evening.

Tessa's finished her seconds by the time the titles start and, as Scott stands to take her plate back into the kitchen for her, Charlie takes his opportunity: "I think there's some popcorn in the cupboard next to the fridge. Go and grab it, Scotty!"

Scott groans but does as he's asked, his mouth tightening as his brothers settle in either side of Tessa. As much as he hates seeming like the put-upon youngest sibling in front of her, he finds, looking at them all, there's something nice inside it too. There's something safe and comforting and fun about his brothers and Tessa all camping out together in the Moirs’ lounge, eating his dad's popcorn and, inevitably, falling asleep together one by one before the credits roll.

Sure enough, two hours later, Joe comes in and finds the four of them asleep in a row with their heads lolled back onto the seat of the sofa. He clears his throat in a faint-hearted attempt to wake them but only Scott stirs, his head perking up to realize that Tessa has curled into his side, her head resting on his shoulder, while Danny and Charlie are sat either side of them, snoring away. It's in this half-woken, bleary state that Scott scans her face, taking in the softness of her features and the gentle way her hands have curled around his jumper to ball it inside her grasp. The possessiveness of it makes him smile, a smugness overcoming him before his thoughts can catch up to whatever the hell it means.

With his dad standing over them wearing a look of benevolent confusion, he feels Tessa shift in her sleep, unconsciously rubbing her leg up against his and letting out a contented little moan. It’s then that he gives her a nudge, prompting her eyes to blink open. Tessa’s head turns to look up at him, her sparkling green eyes so wide that holding her gaze makes him feels like he's free-falling into open water.

The lightning bolt hits him then. His breath gets caught in his throat for a moment, his entire body gripped with the realization.

He likes Tessa.

He _likes_ Tessa.

A rosy blush blooms on her cheeks as she turns her attention from Scott to his dad, who then calmly – oblivious to the earth-shattering revelation unfolding in front of him – says, "We should get you home. Your mom called, asking where you'd got to."

At that, Tessa leaps up, almost stepping on Scott's leg to find her footing as he puts out a hand to steady her. The sudden movement causes the other two Moir boys to jerk awake, their eyes scanning from the still-playing film on the small screen to the awkwardness playing out between Joe, Scott and Tessa as she pulls her cellphone out to call her sister for a ride home. Wearing wry smiles on their faces, they make a discreet exit, with Danny simply saying, "See ya, Big Hands!" as Charlie offers a casual, "Bye, Tess."  

"I'll drive you," Scott suggests, his voice steady and firm despite himself. It leaves little room for debate.

"Okay," she replies quietly, giving a polite, timid smile to Joe as they head out past him.

"You kids drive safe, okay? And straight back here after you drop her home, Scott."

 

*

 

When they pull up at the Virtue house, Tessa doesn't get out of the car right away. She lingers beside him, an expectant air hanging between them that puts Scott on edge. He stares straight ahead until she interrupts the quiet to say, "I really enjoyed tonight."

"I'm sorry. About my brothers."

"I love your brothers," she insists with such genuine affection in her tone that it makes his stomach lurch a little. She holds a bright smile as though to emphasize her point, and he has to break eye contact just to escape the spotlight of her gaze. He's been aware he likes Tessa Virtue for all of 45 minutes now and he's still teeming with adrenaline. Sweetly, she adds, "And I _really_ love your mom's garlic chicken," and he knows he's absolutely screwed.

He doesn’t know how to say it, how to desperately claw back enough distance to breathe again. Because it’s Tessa. His Tessa. And a stupid crush, just like with Emily, could ruin everything they’ve built together. It feels self-destructive to still be living the unsteady aftermath of one crush and suddenly find himself grappling with another. There’s also the sudden realization of how it’ll impact his family – his mother especially, who adores her. Not as much as he does, though. Not that much. But how can he tell her all that? "Tess–"

"What's wrong?"

"My, uhh... My mom started talking to me. About you. And I just... I don't like lying to them. They really love you; you're like family to all of them. I just… don't know if it's the right thing anymore. It's confusing for them, I guess." And what he doesn't mention is the confusion in his own head: the way his heart starts to race when they're in the midst of a performance, the way a wave of calm washes over his body every time he feels her touch him – casually, absently, barely – as they walk through the school together, the way he feels a blush bloom from his cheeks to his chest when he spots her in the crowd at hockey. And maybe it's not that confusing after all now that he thinks about it. Maybe it's pretty simple, but he really can't say any of that and expect everything to stay the same. So, instead, he reiterates, "I just don't want to confuse my family."

"You're the one who wanted us to carry it on for the ski trip!"

"I know. But maybe… Maybe after we get back we should just… I don't know, T. I don't know what the best thing to do is."

"I know it's hard to lie to them, but it's just for a while. Just for a bit longer, eh? You said we'd do it at least until after the trip. Otherwise you'll end up stuck with Luke and Emily the whole time, right?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think about the look on my mom's face when she thinks I broke your heart," he suddenly bursts out with.

He watches Tessa draw back from him, taking in his sudden outburst. "Why is she gonna think _you_ broke _my_ heart?"

"Because I'm the stupid one," he snaps, spitting it out a little more sharply than he means to. Because the truth that has become painfully clear in the last 48 minutes is that if anyone's heart is getting broken here, his is first in line. But he can't tell her that. She's there to help him, to help him convince Emily he's moved on. And to make Ethan jealous. ( _Ethan_. Now, there's a thought that gets his jaw grinding.)

It seems as if she knows better than to argue the point, so Tessa pivots, softly assuring him, "Nothing's gonna change, though. They'll see it's all fine when we just go back to the way we were before. The way we've always been."

"Yeah," he replies. It's distant and noncommittal.

"Let's just go on the vacation and figure things out after that. I don't think I can deal with everyone being dramatic about our 'break-up' while we're all on a ski trip together."

He gives a nod of agreement but she sits it out in the front seat of the car until he turns properly to face her, waiting longer still until he gives her something resembling a smile. Then she cheerily hops out, stopping again only to say, "I'll see you at training in the morning, okay?"

"Bright and early."

Tessa rolls her eyes before turning away. He watches her run-skip down the drive, remaining parked until she disappears inside the house.

Once he sees that she’s gone, he slumps forward, pressing his forehead to the steering wheel.

"Well, fuck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said before, I'm veering from the movie somewhat so I hope you continue to like where I take things. I really wanted to have their skating play a part in all this. Please let me know if you're enjoying this so far! (I'm nothing if not a self-doubting mess, always.)


	4. overheard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“It’s fine. It’s all fake anyway, right?” She sounds so dismissive, it breaks his heart. Whatever he’d been planning to say, he knows right away that it’s time for the truth. “I mean… we’re friends and you can sit with whoever you want. As long as Emily still thinks you like me, it doesn’t really matter.”_

Scott’s sat in the school cafeteria at lunch, breaking off pieces of his sandwich instead of eating it, as Luke and Emily squabble over the last Dorito. Noticing his friend’s uncharacteristic silence, Luke looks up at Scott curiously – long enough for his girlfriend to steal the chip – and asks, “Excited about the trip?”

Scott, who’s sunk down in his seat, replies with a sullen mumble. “I guess.”

Luke arches his eyebrows and fixes him with a hard stare, before replying, “Your enthusiasm, it’s overwhelming.” He gives him a light kick under the table and it prompts Scott to sit up a little. “Come on, dude. You just got back from a country I can’t pronounce the name of and now we’re headed off for a couple of days on the slopes. What’ve you got to be grumbling about, really, eh?”

“No, I _am_ excited,” he lies, attempting to rally his mood enough to cover the internal crisis he’s experiencing. “My mom’s just been… on my case a little bit.”

“About what?”

Leaning his elbows on the lunch table, Luke rests his face in his hands as he studies Scott’s expression. Beside him, Emily’s listening closely too, her head tilting towards her boyfriend without quite reaching his shoulder.

“She thinks I’m gonna mess things up with Tessa, she thinks I’m gonna injure myself skiing, she thinks too much,” Scott explains, shaking his head with a sigh. In truth, his mother’s concerns are the least of his problems right now, but it’s at least something he can speak aloud to his friends. The rest remains his dirty little secret: the fake girlfriend he’s falling for, the crush he’s pretending he never had, the letter he wishes he’d never sent.

“Well, the ski trip is hardly about skiing anyway,” Luke reminds him. And it’s not like Scott doesn’t know that, but it’s hardly something he can say outright to his mother. “It’s just a bunch of horny kids all on a mission to lose their virginity.”

Emily gives Luke a forceful elbow to his side before a look passes between them that’s neither subtle nor ambiguous. Scott can’t help but ask: “You two included?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna...” Luke lets his eyebrows explain the rest. There’s a puppyish grin on his face, a giddiness about his demeanour that lacks any hint of hesitation about sharing their private plan with his friend.

Emily gives her boyfriend a sharp look before saying under her breath, “Do we have to tell him _everything_?”

“It’s Scott,” Luke replies with a shrug, as though that answers the question. He turns to look at her and Scott watches as the couple fall into an unspoken exchange, little more than a strange staring contest to the outside world but a private language between the two of them, subtle smiles pulling at their lips. Eventually, Luke adds, “And _you_ gave that one away, baby.”

Emily scrunches her nose and shakes her head, knowing better than to try and get the last word. Instead, she reaches over to grab the granola bar from in front of her boyfriend.

“There are chaperones. How’s everyone gonna be having sex with chaperones around?” Scott asks, steering them back onto topic.

“They go to sleep early because they’re old,” Luke replies dismissively.

“People just sneak out,” Emily adds, her tone a little more considered.

Scott thinks about the prospect of being surrounded by all of his school friends hooking up.  

It’s going to be torture – acute, relentless torture the entire time. That’s so glaringly apparent now, he finds it hard to recall the eagerness with which he’d signed himself up for this trip, or the misguided enthusiasm that had compelled him to talk Tessa into coming too. It’s now feeling like possibly the worst idea he’s ever had.

Now, he realizes that any actual skiing is firmly off the table if ice dance means a damn thing to him, and suddenly it does; and the prospect of cozying up with Tessa in a ski lodge for a couple of days is seeming increasingly like self-inflicted torment. The way his heart is racing at just the brush of her skin or the sound of her voice, like suddenly she’s the only person in focus, makes the idea of keeping his feelings for her bottled up seem impossible. Especially in the context of being surrounded by freshly consummated couples – everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. (Not the least of which will be his best friend and former crush, his feelings for whom had kicked off the very bad, no good chain of events that has led him here.)

He circles back to the thought of being with Tess, of being with her all the time and knowing she likes someone else. They’ll have to do all the things that couples do until doors are closed, inviting everyone to jump to the inevitable conclusions, and he’ll be wishing desperately that they’re true. And there’s only one thing worse than being with her all the time: the thought of _not_ being with her all the time, of Tess slipping away for moments with Ethan, soaking up his renewed interest in her and inadvertently hurting Scott in the process.

“Scott?” he hears, and it’s said like it’s not the first time. “What about you and Tessa?”

“We’re not… Umm… we’re… no. No, not… nope.”

Luke laughs. “I guess things are still new with you two.”

“Yeah,” he says, relieved not to have to give further explanation.

“Tessa!” Emily calls out suddenly, and the boys’ heads whip around to see her coming towards them. She’s looking directly at Scott, despite the fact that it was Emily who’d called out her name.

And there’s that feeling again.

He can hear the thump of his heart so loud in his ears, it feels like it’s beating inside his head. The way she smiles at him when their eyes meet only heightens it. A silent conversation passes between them, going straight over Luke and Emily’s heads, as she moves around the table to settle in the seat beside him. Without a word, she passes him the string cheese she already had ready and he slides over the chocolate pudding from his own lunch.

For a second, he forgets. He forgets that it isn’t real.

“What are you guys talking about?” She looks around at each of them one by one.

“Uh, the ski trip. Scott’s complaining that he can’t ski.”

“Well, Suze and Paul will kill us if we get injured on the slopes,” Tessa points out. “I mean, you can… do whatever,” she adds, turning to look at him, “but… with the Grand Prix coming up...”

“Still, you can make it a nice romantic getaway in the ski lodge,” Emily suggests warmly, prompting Luke to raise his eyebrows suggestively at Scott. Tessa notices and laughs, rolling her eyes, and when she catches the tension in Scott’s expression, she places a hand on his arm as if to reassure him. “Cozy nights in with the wood-burning fires, mountain views…”

“That sounds nice,” Tessa says, a dreaminess in her voice so calm and convincing, just for a second he lets himself believe it.

 

*

 

It’s not even light out yet when Alma drops him off on the morning of the ski trip. She’s not said two words since they got in the car, but Scott’s mind is so busy racing through every possible outcome of the Tessa situation that he barely notices.

They pull up right outside the school and Scott’s surprised when he turns his head to say goodbye and notices the tension in her face. A part of him wants to ask her about it, or reassure her that everything’s okay, or promise that he won’t do anything he shouldn’t, or insist that it’s not Tessa who’s getting hurt. Instead, though, as he goes to speak, he catches sight of his skating partner dragging her blush pink carry-on suitcase behind her. Any other thought quickly drifts from his mind.

“I’ll see you when I’m home, okay?” He hurriedly leans to hug his mom, giving a kiss to her cheek before he steps out of the car, grabs his bag off the backseat and heads towards where the rest of the students are assembling near the parked bus.

Tessa’s lost among the group by the time he reaches them, and he ends up hanging back, slumping his weight against the side of the waiting vehicle as one of the teachers gives a safety briefing a few metres away. Somewhere between the warnings about seat belts and alcohol, he catches the quiet, melodic sound of Tessa’s voice saying, “Ethan, I _do_ like you but–”

“Tess, this is ridiculous. I get that I said we needed space for a while, but I don’t know why you’re bothering with him. You know we’re just… meant to be,” he hears Ethan reply, the words coated in that nauseatingly self-assured tone that pushes all of Scott’s buttons. “We’re lobsters, you and I.”

“I…” Tessa’s voice sounds tight all of a sudden. He can’t see her face, but it pains him to picture the worry lines of her forehead and the sadness in her eyes as she’s forced to lie – _for him_. “I can’t. I’m with someone else and he needs me right now.”

“Scott Moir? He’s your skating partner, for fuck’s sake. That’s so cliché. You hate cliché.”

“He’s my best friend, and… I’m with him.”

The way she says it, all terse restraint and aching hesitations, makes Scott heart sink. The pain of it feels so immediate and intense, it’s almost violent. It feels as though that vital organ that keeps his blood pumping, that keeps his pulse steady, might’ve just descended from his body and embedded itself between the cracks of the pavement, landing there for anyone to step on.

_He needs me._

She can’t be with this idiot – and he _is_ an idiot, and that does provide some small comfort – because Scott needs her. Suddenly it’s suffocating: the reminder that this was all really about Tessa being a good friend. His best friend, it turns out. She’s the one he can always rely on. She’s the one who’ll sacrifice her own happiness to help him. She’s the one.

Scott briefly turns around to smack his head a few times against the side of the bus, before Luke grabs his shoulder. “Hey! What the fuck?” he says, a light chuckle to his words despite the hint of alarm in his eyes.

A shake of the head is all it takes before he stops asking, much to Scott’s relief.

Moments later, the teachers begin to lead everyone to the door of the bus. Scott, Luke and Emily hang back, and Tessa doesn’t notice him right away. He ducks as she looks around, before he sees her step onto the bus, moving out of view until he gets on a few students later. As everyone files on, Tessa slides into a seat halfway down the aisle; Scott watches before shuffling past her.

“Hey,” he hears her say, drawing him back on barely more than a whisper. “You’re not sitting with me?”

He keeps his eyes on the ground as he shakes his head. “I said I’d hang with Luke,” is all he can think to say before carrying on down the path of the bus until he reaches his friends. He throws himself into an empty two-seater, dumping his bag on the aisle seat before leaning his head against the window.

He stares gloomily out of it for the entire journey, barely uttering two words to Luke and Emily who sit in front of him. He’s too busy grinding down a single tasteless piece of chewing gum.

“Trouble in paradise?” Luke asks later, peering over the top of the seat.

Scott gives no reply; he just shoots his friend a dirty look and taps the volume button to turn up the angsty indie rock that’s playing in his ears.

 

*

 

The ski lodge is exactly as Scott had pictured. They’d seen a few pictures in the email that had been sent out ahead of the sign-ups, but his imagination had filled in the rest. There’s a grand fireplace and bearskin rugs and lots of little nooks, perfect, he thinks, for Tessa to hide away in with a book.

Perhaps that’s where she hides.

He doesn’t see her at all during their first morning there, even though they’re two of the few who hang back from the activities on the slopes. Scott wanders around restlessly, wanting to avoid her as much as he wants to see her. They should be curled up in a bedroom right now, or making use of the hot tub, or venturing out on a romantic walk; instead, they’re giving each other the silent treatment.

In the afternoon, she clearly decides she’s had enough of moping around. He spots her wrapped up in a pom pom hat, a pink ski bib she must have borrowed from someone, and her oversized parka, heading out with some of the girls from her class. She looks like a strawberry marshmallow: soft and cozy and irresistible. All he wants is to fold his arms around her and squish her until she’s giggling in his ear. That giggle and her body so warm, there’d be no need for him to wrap up in anything else.

Instead, he pretends not to see her and she does the same.

At dinner that night, Tessa hides away behind Kaitlyn Weaver from her French class and leaves no opening for him to speak to her. It’s the longest they’ve gone without talking for as long as he can remember. He knows that by the time and date on his phone, but also by the ache in his chest that won’t seem to go away, by the way he can feel his heart clenching like a fist.

The next day, he resolves to take a different approach. Missing out on all the activities ensures it doesn’t take all that long for Scott to grow impatient. After texting Luke all morning, he decides on the second day that he’s going out snowboarding. Because maybe the air outside will be easier to breathe than the suffocating claustrophobia of this damned lodge they’re cooped up in – and this was supposed to be fun or romantic or something, something that isn’t spending all day wishing the hours away between meals.

As he’s heading out, he notices Tessa curled up on the couch in the lounge area with her face buried in a book. He briefly considers asking her to go with him – either as an olive branch or the latest twist in his own self-inflicted suffering – but as he goes up to suggest it, he catches sight of Ethan hovering.

Instead, he moves straight past her without a word.  

“You’re going out?” she says as he sets a hand on the handle of the door. He hears her hardback thump closed.

“Yeah, snowboarding,” he replies, and that’s where the invitation belongs. But he doesn’t give it.

“What about our Grand Prix?”

“What about it?” It comes out colder than he means.

“When we talked about this trip, I figured it was just for hanging out. I didn’t think you’d actually ski. This risk of injury is–”

“I’m not skiing, I’m snowboarding.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

He heads out, abandoning what starts to feel awfully like an argument. There’s an impulse to slam the door, to put that firm punctuation mark to the end of their exchange, but he manages to suppress it. He knows all too well she doesn’t deserve that. She hasn’t done a damn thing wrong; she never has.

By the time he’s reached the slopes, he’s thought better of the whole idea. Her words are stuck in his head. Because of course she’s right. Just like his mother told him. Just like Paul had told him. So he hangs back, watching his buddies take their turns. When it comes time for his, he shakes his head.

“Scott?” Luke looks at him, concerned.

“Better not,” he says, and then he gives an exaggerated shrug. “I think I’m just gonna… head back.”

“You’re okay, though, right?”

Scott doesn’t even know how to answer that. Instead, he just throws his arms up before turning to walk away.

 

*

 

Tessa isn’t curled up in the corner of the couch anymore when he gets back early.

She isn’t at dinner in the evening either, leaving a space at Scott’s side that raises a million questions that everyone seems to know not to ask.

She doesn’t show her face at the party the students hold later that evening, as everyone argues over the playlist and dilutes their drink with whatever alcohol they’ve managed to talk their older siblings into buying. He looks up every time someone new walks into a room, but it’s never her.

“Have you seen T?” he asks Kaitlyn later. He says it casually, laissez faire about the way he holds the solo cup in one hand and absently looks around the room.

“After you ditched her on the bus?” she spits back, stalking off to the kitchen to avoid answering the question.

It’s only then, really, that he realizes his mistake. Kaitlyn’s right. She barely knows him, probably only has what little Tessa’s told him, and yet she can see through him instantly.

It’s barely been a week since he’d come to the startling realization that he’s head over heels in love – and yes, he’s now decided, it’s ‘in love’, not that warm, familial love that he’d thought it was all along – with his partner, and he’s already taking it out on her. It’s not Tessa’s fault she doesn’t feel the same way. None of this is her fault. She only wanted to help him out, to help him salvage his friendships with Emily and Luke. She was just being a good friend.

He can’t even seem to get himself to do that.

Scott doesn’t know quite how they ended up in a fight. It’s the last thing he’d ever want, but somehow they’ve ended up in one, locked in this awful, suffocating standoff. He hates it, and he hates knowing that he’s the one who caused it. All he wants is for things to be fun and light again, the way it always is between them. He wants to at least preserve their friendship, especially now that this last part of their deal is almost over. When the fake part of their relationship ends, he at least wants to still have what was real – what was always real.

He has to apologize. As soon as is humanly possible.

He’s seized with that desperate need to apologize to her as soon as it hits him. He _has_ to speak to Tessa, and suddenly she’s impossible to find. He goes to Emily, he goes to Luke, he goes up to people he doesn’t know, he even asks Ethan if he’s seen her. It’s only much later, after Luke drifts back from fetching Emily’s cardigan as the evening draws to a close, that his friend tells him, “Poje said she went outside to get some air a while back.”

He decides to head out to the lodge balcony, praying she’s still out there. It’s late – well past midnight, and most of the others have headed to bed already, but he knows she’s a night owl. Maybe she’s still up.

As soon as he steps outside, the brisk night air hits him. The cold stings his face and he knows his cheeks have bloomed bright red; he can feel the subtle throb of blood rushing to the surface of his skin. Ignoring every instinct to go back into the inviting warmth of the firelit indoors, he wanders behind the main lodge up to a little raised area tucked in where the hideaway meets the edge of the woods. His whole body starts to shiver, teeth chattering, but it feels as much about his nerves as the temperature.  

Once he gets near enough, he can make out the outline of her – distant but unmistakable. It takes him by surprise, but she’s sitting in the hot tub alone. Her head’s down and she’s facing away from him. For just a moment, he looks at her without moving or speaking; he just wants one more look before whatever happens happens. One more look to give him the strength to have whatever conversation is coming.

“All by yourself out here? You avoiding me, kiddo?” he asks as he strolls over to the hot tub. Her back is turned towards him still and he can see that she’s holding a book open just above the water.

She’s got her hair wrapped in a messy bun on top of her head, loose tendrils escaping over her bare shoulders. He’d wonder if she was wearing anything at all if it weren’t for the moonlight shimmering off of the slim satin straps of her nightgown. As he gets closer, he can see the way the material is tenting around her in the water.

“I’m the one avoiding you?”

“What are you–” he can’t help but wonder, gesturing down at her clothing choice.

“Didn’t pack a swimsuit,” she snaps back, rolling her eyes.

Scott stops and looks down at his feet, trying to get back to the main point at hand, before continuing sheepishly towards her. “Tessa, I thought you went to bed early. Luke said he saw you headed to the girls’ dorm. If I’d known you were out here— ”

“What? You’d have done what, Scott? I just wanted to… be alone, and no one was out here.”

He says nothing, until eventually: “You just disappeared.”

Tessa shakes her head, giving a shrug while still pretending to read her book. “I needed some air and… quiet.”

“It seems like I hurt your feelings.”

A long silence stretches out between them and Scott finds himself holding his breath as it endures. He watches her finally look up properly, reaching over to position a bookmark and place her paperback on the ledge before she confronts him: "Why wouldn't you sit with me on the bus, Scott? I was humiliated. Everyone thinks we had a fight.”

“It seemed like maybe you wanted to sit with Ethan. I didn’t want to… intrude.”

"I wanted to sit with _you_. I brought you string cheese for the trip.” The words ‘string cheese’ have never sounded so ridiculous or so romantic in Scott’s life. “And I made us a playlist."

"Was it all Hall and Oates? Is it all your old lady music?" he manages to tease, resisting the better judgment telling him that this possibly isn’t the best time.

Churlishly, she retorts, "You'll never find out now."

“You made me a playlist," he says, almost to himself. He bows his head to hide a smile. “And you got the cheese I like.”

“And that means…” Tessa waves a hand demonstratively.

“I really messed up.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Tess,” he says, moving to the very edge of the hot tub, his voice barely audible over the sound of the bubbles, but he knows she hears him; her eyes are trained on him as her name escapes his lips. “I’m… so sorry.” _For dragging you into this mess, for jumping to conclusions, for falling in love with you._

“It’s fine. It’s all fake anyway, right?” She sounds so dismissive, it breaks his heart. Whatever he’d been planning to say, he knows right away that it’s time for the truth. “I mean… we’re friends and you can sit with whoever you want. As long as Emily still thinks you like me, it doesn’t really matter.”

“Tess—” he starts, stepping into the hot tub with all his regular clothes still on in a moment of impulse. He finds it to be just a touch hotter than a bath, instantly relieving his shivers with a blanket of warm relief.

“It’s all just pretending,” she reminds him, still lost in a distracted daze as she delivers her rehearsed-sounding speech. And then she notices, feels the splash of water against her face. “Scott! You can’t—”

“What?” he asks facetiously, a smug grin breaking out across his face as he moves fully in. She’s giggling now, her hand covering her mouth to register the shock of it.

“Scott…” Tessa sounds nervous – his name unsteady, the rest of the sentence dying on her tongue.

He wades towards her and keeps moving closer until he’s right there, in front of her, her legs naturally opening to make room for him there as her hands settle on his shoulders. It’s all instinct, the way they move together like magnets until he stops between her knees, and it’s only now that he sees it. He can see a spark in her eyes and maybe it’s just the moonlight, maybe she just thinks he’s crazy, but he starts to think that isn’t it – because of the way they slot together, the way she doesn’t smile but she doesn’t shy away either, the way her mouth hangs just slightly open as she takes him in.

Steam rises where the heat of the water meets the cold air, and it lingers around them, surrounding them in a heady cloud. That elemental synthesis of ice and fire feels like the manifestation of that precious line they’ve always been treading.

“Tess,” he whispers softly in her ear, voice ragged and urgent and vulnerable now, his hands settling along the curve of her waist beneath the water, “it’s not fake for me.”

He moves his face away from hers in time to watch her expression transform, like the pages of a book slowly falling open. “It’s not?”

The look in her eyes prompts him to place his hand to her face, thumbing gently across her cheek as his fingers settle in her hair – it’s like she can’t quite believe him, even now the words are spoken. The way she melts against his touch gives him the confidence to say, his voice low but certain and even, “Does this seem fake to you?”

Scott draws back a little more to take in the sight of her up-close. His eyes scan across her features, making sure he’ll always have the snapshot memory of how beautiful she was the first time he kissed her properly. Then he leans in again, this time so that his lips find hers. It’s something bold and slow and purposeful. It’s nothing like Ilderton Skating Carnival.

Her hand slides up his back to rest at his neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss. With the benefit of the raised ledge of hot tub, her legs wrap around his waist, locking so that he’s pressed tight against her, so that he can feel her heart race against his chest.

When they pull away to catch their breaths, she giggles nervously as they rest their foreheads against each other. She winds her arms around his neck possessively and he finds a profound feeling of contentment in her embrace, the two of them wrapped up inside their private little bubble.

“What?” Scott asks shyly, a little red-faced from her laughter. He breathes her in, the scent of chlorine mixing with that strawberry shower gel that he so often smells on her skin.

She beams back. “Nothing.”

As she moves to kiss him again, Scott’s hand finds her ass and he lifts her up around him, using the grip of her legs around his waist to switch their positions. He perches on the seat of the hot tub and pulls her up into his lap. He hears her breath hitch just a little at the surprise of it and then feels her hands pulling at his t-shirt.

Scott runs his fingers through her hair; it’s absent-minded affection, but it earns a low moan against his lips. Encouraged, he keeps teasing her, eventually moving his hand from her hair, slowly stroking down her back, until he reaches her ass again. It prompts her to shift forward, edging closer and closer, and he knows, even if she doesn’t quite yet, that it’s starting to get a little… dangerous.

“Have you… before?” he asks breathlessly between kisses.

“No,” she says, pulling back to look him in the eye.

“T, we shouldn’t.”

She kisses his lips softly, just a peck, before: “I know.”

“We... We need to stop soon, Tess,” he says, the awkwardness of his implication put at ease by the way she’s smiling as she nods – easy and serene and like nothing he ever imagined for himself.

“Okay,” she whispers, and then she kisses his cheek before burying her face in his neck for just a moment. And he holds her there, wrapped around him. “We should go back inside.”

“I don’t want to,” he admits, laughing without volume. The chuckle moves his chest against hers.

“Me neither,” she replies, and he feels her exhale a long, deep breath as she sits upright again to face him. Softly, she touches his cheek with the back of her hand as her eyes dance over his features. They sparkle so brightly in the moonlight, he can’t look at anything but that great gorgeous green.

 

*

 

When they get out – not too much later, despite mutual reluctance, Scott’s quick to grab the towel that Tessa had laid out beside the hot tub. He wraps it around her shoulders before rubbing his hands up and down her arms as she shivers in front of him.

There’s a smile on her face as she watches him fuss over her, towelling off her arms and legs to hurriedly get her dry. It’s a smile that only fades for a moment: as his eyes scan over her body to check whether to keep drying, when they settle on her chest. The nightdress clings tight to her skin, close to transparent now that it’s wet, and Scott can’t help but look, his eyes hesitating there before he meets her eyes again. The boldness in her heavy gaze takes him by surprise, those familiar eyes now dark and unblinking.

He swallows, watching her watch him. She doesn’t shy away. Tessa doesn’t even look nervous – he’s seen nervous: chatty, giddy nervous; this is aching curiosity. He can feel it. The way she just stands there, not making any move to cover herself and knowing what it’s doing to him, leaves him in no doubt: she wants him as much as he wants her.

Without conscious thought, he brings a hand up. Tessa’s eyes move to it, watching it rise toward her chest, ghosting over the damp cotton fabric but never settling. Instead, Scott moves up to hold her face, his fingertips nestling in her hair as his thumb strokes softly against the apple of her cheek.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, bringing himself close again.

Tessa turns her face up to look at him. In some ways, it’s no different from the end of a program; they’ve finished many dances in positions not unlike this one. But as her careful eyes take him in and she lets out a long, deep breath, it feels like everything’s changed.

Before they can get swept in that intoxicating feeling, Scott turns to pick up the dressing gown she’d brought out and helps her step into it. Once she’s all wrapped up, he goes to ring out his t-shirt over the side of the hot tub. It’ll survive, but there’s no saving the sopping wet jeans. She winces a little out of concern before saying, “Those’ll never dry before we have to go home.”

“Worth it,” he replies, a lopsided grin forming on his face. Giving up on his ill-fated attempts to dry himself, having refused to borrow the towel Tessa had brought for herself, he wraps an arm around her and leads them back inside. He won’t say it aloud, but he doesn’t want her to get cold waiting for him.

Tessa flutters her eyelashes before asking, “What’re you gonna wear instead?”

“I only have these and… ski pants.”

“Ski pants?”

“Cozy.”

“Scott,” she laughs his name, lightly nudging his shoulder. She goes to turn away, to head back to the girls’ dorm, but he grabs her hand and pulls her back to him for another kiss. It’s gentle and sweet, and he knows he’s got her just where he wants her when he says, “Goodnight, T,” and she can’t repress a look of disappointment.

“Goodnight.”

He watches as she walks up to the girls’ side of the lodge, and he’s left to trudge back, sopping wet, to the boys’. Before he reaches the door, though, he’s stopped in his tracks.

“It was a lie,” he hears suddenly, the words so foreign and unexpected that it takes a few moments for the wave of giddy euphoria that he’s still riding to pass. And then she elaborates. “You were pretending to date Tessa this whole time?”

He turns around. It’s not a conscious choice but his feet seem to move of their own accord, twisting him until he’s facing her. Emily. And there’s a look of horror etched into her expression that just about pulls the ground from under him. He can taste bile in his mouth. Her face is screwed up, moving between anger and confusion and upset in little shifts: the way her eyebrows move together to form a sharp line, the way her lip quivers (but maybe that’s just the cold), the way she sniffs with increasing frequency like she’s fighting a losing battle with herself.

He wants to ask if she’s okay; she doesn’t look it. He wants to apologize. Instead, weakly, he merely replies, “You can’t tell anyone.”

She scoffs at that, and her indignation is almost a relief. It’s better than what looked like tears.

“What the fuck, Scott?”

“I really… I _am_ with Tessa,” he says, his voice pleading too much for it to sound convincing.

“Scott,” she spits out. “I just came out here… for some air. And you were… I overheard you. I heard _her_. ‘It’s all just fake anyway.’ What am I meant to think? Were you just lying so that I didn’t tell Luke about the letter?”

“No!” But it’s hardly the truth, he realizes. “You can’t have heard all of it.”

“I’ve been lying to my boyfriend for weeks because of you! This was supposed to be the best trip ever! We were gonna…” Her voice trails off, and Scott can’t even look at her anymore. He’s lost all feeling in his body at this point thanks to the cold, so it would be comforting to look down and see that the rest of him is still there if he weren’t now wishing he could disappear.

Eventually, she adds quietly, “I can’t lie to him anymore.”

“I thought… I thought we were fine.”

She shakes her head, that way Tessa does sometimes when he thinks she’s about to get mad. “How can it be fine? I am lying to the person I love. And you’re lying to _everyone_ , Scott.”

“But I... love Tess,” he insists, though it feels utterly futile at this point. He knows full well every word that comes out makes him sound like a child. _How can a feeling that is so big come out sounding so small?_

“How am I supposed to believe anything you say anymore?”

He doesn’t have an answer to that; instead, he silently watches her walk away.


	5. secret's out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He thinks about telling her. But if he can have just one more minute of this new, exhilarating happiness with Tessa, everything they lied about now more true than he can ever have imagined, then it's too much to risk. He'll take it. He’ll take the shortcut, the easy option, the opt-out. Even though he knows Tessa would hate him for it – she'd always lay out the possible choices with careful reasoning, never succumbing to the seduction of instant gratification._ But _, he reasons_ , she's never known what it's like to be faced with losing Tessa Virtue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming back for more! I hope you enjoy this. Only one more chapter to go after this one.

“I thought you were kidding,” is the first thing she says to him when she sets eyes on the questionable ensemble he’s wearing when they meet by the bus. It’s less than ideal, and he’ll definitely overheat at some point on the long road home, but there weren’t a whole lot of options after the previous evening’s escapades. He’s clad in a ratty old Tragically Hip t-shirt, his staple puffer coat, electric blue ski pants, and a pair of well-worn Converse trainers. Even with her one eyebrow raised disapprovingly, he can’t quite resist wrapping an arm around Tessa in greeting.

“You really packed no other pants?” she protests into the padding of his jacket as he bundles her into a warm and well-insulated hug. Scott just laughs, his embrace tightening as he lifts her off the ground.

“Glad to see you two have kissed and made up,” Luke remarks – and while it’s a typical Luke thing for him to say, his voice sounds flatter than usual. Or maybe Scott’s just hearing things.

Tessa draws back to look at Scott properly, studying his expression for a moment – long enough that he grows tense, hoping she doesn’t notice the unshakeable anxiety he’s struggling to suppress and the redness around his eyes. Then she kisses him, just a swift, little peck; it’s a close-mouthed, soft-lipped smile drawing up to meet his.

When they part, his mouth lifts at the corner just slightly as he looks down at her sunny expression. Freshly-kissed, she’s blissfully serene and glowing with confidence. “You mind if I sit with you?” he asks, his heavy gaze locked on hers, his quiet voice coming out a little gravelly from a night of no sleep.

“You better,” she teases, giving him a playful nudge as they fall into stride. Their hands find each other in the space that forms between them and he responds only with a little squeeze.

When they’re forced to let go, as they step onto the bus single file, Scott’s hand finds its way to her hip, settling there as she leads him to the same double-seater she’d taken on the way. She cozies into the window seat, using her coat as a blanket, as Scott shoves his own into the overhead compartment before sitting down beside Tessa.

“What’s this playlist I’ve heard so much about then, eh?” he prods her, giving a nudge of his elbow too.

She turns to him with a broad grin, though her brows draw together, and says, "Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, let me just..." Tessa reaches into her coat pocket to dig out her headphones, hurriedly untangling them in front of him as he watches with a wry smile. She then passes him an earbud, and adds, "Okay, so, there's an order… I'm gonna…" Her finger scans over the screen, tapping down on the playlist that he notices she’s titled "take another little piste of my heart", and then he hears ‘Let’s Dance' start to play.

"I love this song!"

"I know," she replies, the words almost hidden from his ears as she tucks her chin down to review the carefully curated track listing.

Scott scrunches his whole face up, getting into the beat with a nod of his head. She smiles brightly, and the way her cautious eyes study his reaction compels him to exaggerate it, adding extra flair to his head movements, closing his eyes to the song, singing along when he knows the words. And then he hears her laugh – bursting out big and wild, and he knows it was all worth it.

He mellows after a while, giving ever more muted responses but always at least a quiet little moan of approval for her ears alone as a new song starts up. They sink down into their seats together, hidden from view as their bodies slump at the mercy of sleep. Or some comforting half-sleep, still with their hands locked together. The pads of his fingers just metronomically tap the rhythm against her knuckles gently as she curls her body into his, her head fixed against his shoulder.

It’s as they quieten that Scott’s conscience starts to niggle away at him, undistracted. His thoughts drift to wondering, anxiously, how long they have before it blows up. He thinks about telling her now; he considers warning her of all of it. But if he can have just one more minute of this new, exhilarating happiness with Tessa, soaking up that strawberry scent as she moans sleepily into the shoulder of his t-shirt, everything they lied about now more true than he can ever have imagined, then it's too much to risk. He'll take it. He’ll take the shortcut, the easy option, the opt-out. Even though he knows Tessa would hate him for it – she'd always lay out the possible choices with careful reasoning, never succumbing to the seduction of instant gratification. _But_ , he reasons, _she's never known what it's like to be faced with the prospect of losing Tessa Virtue_.

He says nothing, instead simply wills himself to fall asleep again, though he dips in and out. It never lasts too long. Each time he stirs, he wakes to find himself embracing Tessa in some new way. He wonders which of them is fidgeting in their dreams but, noticing her stillness as she dozes, discerns that it can only be him.

Tessa says nothing. He doesn’t realize she notices anything’s amiss at all until they get off the bus together.

First, Scott bumps into Emily as they disembark. He leaves space for her to get out of her seat but she hesitates and the confusion leads to a collision in the aisle, their eyes meeting in some mixture of warning and fear. The stare-off lingers a little too long.

As they wait for their bags by the undercarriage of the bus, Scott reaches for Tessa’s first, bringing it over to her. When he goes back to collect his backpack, again he’s faced with Emily, their eyes meeting for a lengthy, significant stare that neither seems able to avoid. When it ends, when he finally musters enough composure to continue about his business, his gaze drifts to Tessa and there’s no mistaking the question in her eyes.

"You and Emily. You keep looking at each other like something's going on," she says when he comes back over, her voice so strained that he can feel a tightness in his own throat. He can't bring himself to tell her that something _is_ going on – not what she thinks, perhaps worse than she thinks. How can he possibly tell her that the lies she's told for him might be about to spill out?

He can’t. Instead, he just presses a kiss to her temple and reassures her, “Nothing’s going on, T. I promise. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

And maybe by tomorrow, he’ll have figured it all out.

 

*

 

(Tomorrow comes all too quickly.)

He sends Emily a series of pleading texts when he gets home that same night. After the fifth one goes unanswered, he decides writing to her never did him much good anyway, and instead resorts to staring up at the moon through the window and praying that the universe gives him this one break.

There’s something hypnotizing about that moon. Big and glowing and perfectly full. It’s even more whole than it had been the night before, when he and Tessa had shared their first real kiss. It had been a moment so wonderfully whole, it could eclipse the weeks of uncertainty and angst he’d endured. It had felt so profoundly right to finally lay everything bare to one another, with only the constellations above them to bear witness. He daren’t let himself remember the truth: the invasion of their privacy. He only holds onto the memory of Tessa, bare-faced and beautiful, wrapped around him like she might never let him go, like the moment might just go on and on. He can’t help but dream of a world where they’d never left that hot tub, where they’d stayed shackled inside that embrace.

His phone buzzes and it instantly brings him out of the sentimental reverie. Tessa’s name flashes up, but it’s not an iMessage alert. Instead, an Instagram tag.

He tries to recall a moment when they’d taken a picture together on the trip but comes up short.

When he opens the notification, it’s just a photograph of the night sky, looking just as he sees it from his bedroom window – if perhaps a little mistier, a light fog of cloud casting a thin veil over that luminous, round moon. Her caption simply says, “Goodnight Moon” with the appropriate emoji next to it. There’s no reference to him in her words, only a picture tag. Only the knowledge that, as he’d stared up at the sky, longing to return to their private moment, she’d been doing exactly the same from her own little corner of their world.

He taps a ‘like’, knowing full well that she’s probably nervously waiting for a hint of reassurance from him, knowing one little ‘like’ won’t always be enough. And then he turns over in the bed, burying his face in his pillow to let out a long, frustrated groan.

He doesn’t notice himself falling asleep; he only knows that he tries to put it off as long as possible.

 

*

 

Scott’s a morning person until he isn’t.

Until one grey morning, _this_ morning, when he wakes up feeling like he could vomit his stomach up just thinking about the prospect of getting out of bed.

There’s no practice before school on this particular day, so there’s no relief in knowing that they’ve got one last perfect morning in them: just him, Tess and the ice. He’s never wanted to go to practice more.

Instead, he’s left to simmer in the dread of whatever happens when they get to school. And maybe it won’t all come out, but the the crash feels inevitable, the scale of it so much worse than he’d imagined before the elaborate lie had begun. He’s haunted by the way Emily had looked at him that night, disgust over his lies mixing dangerously with her own confused heartache, and he feels painfully certain that she won’t just be able to make all of that go away. It’ll eat away at her until she confesses everything to Luke. Scott resigns himself to it, pondering how much can be salvaged from owning up to things himself.

It would require the kind of strength he hasn’t been able to muster yet.

As he walks into school, his bag weighing heavier than normal and his head ducked preemptively, he spots Luke by their lockers. His friend’s face is concealed by the blue metal door as he throws his bag inside. Scott holds back, pausing to get a measure of the situation. He watches as Luke fishes out the book he needs and then lets the locker crash shut with careless ambivalence. He turns then, catching sight of Scott at last.

There’s no doubt.

He can see it. He can see in the narrowing of Luke’s eyes and tightness of his jaw that Emily must have told him. He can see that everything’s different now, their friendship forever changed. The usual running-skip over, the warm heckling from down the school corridor, even just a smile: it’s all gone. There’s a darkness in Luke’s expression that makes Scott want to turn on his heels and run in the other direction. It’s a rush of feeling – all of it bad, messy, unmanageable.

Scott approaches anyway, every step forward consciously resisting his natural instinct. He can’t see any other choice.

“What the fuck?” Luke spits out quickly. The curse word is sharp and hard. “Scott, what the _fuck_?”

“What… What did she tell you?” he starts, panicking – and it comes out sounding worse than he means, like he’s confirming that there’s a lie but they haven’t quite got their stories straight. He can’t help but wince at his own question, anticipating the eruption in response.

“I found your fucking letter,” Luke snaps back, stepping closer so that he’s getting in Scott’s face, forcing him to back up a few steps. “It’s pretty black and white from where I’m standing. She told me you’ve been lying this whole time, both of you. Clearly I’m a fucking idiot.”

Scott’s mouth opens and closes and opens. Nothing comes out.

“You were my best friend,” Luke says, and the words come out so quiet, it’s eerie. The past tense of it stings furiously.

“It was before you and her–”

“Scott! You were into my girlfriend this whole time and you never thought about saying something? You even got your stupid, lovesick skating partner to go along with this whole, ridiculous lie.”

That hits a nerve. “Don’t call her stupid!” Scott barks out, spittle landing on Luke’s face.

“She must be – I know about the hot tub, I know about all of it! And look at you! You’re a fucking joke. You can’t get a real girlfriend so you’re going after mine.” Luke scoffs, but it’s a sound so cold that a shiver runs down Scott’s spine; he finds himself blinking back unbidden tears. “And you even got Tessa to cover for you! Em told me. You took advantage of the fact that she’d do anything for you, and you dragged her into your mess!”

There’s a silence as Scott’s left speechless, his mouth hanging open, before Luke adds: “Tell me I’m wrong about anything I just said. You can’t, can you?”

“You’re… wrong,” Scott replies weakly. He can barely convince himself.

It’s as the silence between them drags out again that he starts to take in their surroundings. There are kids hovering, eavesdropping on the heated exchange that’s playing out. He catches sight of Emily watching nervously from the stairs, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes glossy with tears. Then there's the knowing smirk on Ethan Tremblay's face as he passes them by. For Scott, it’s like a match striking. He knows, suddenly, what it all means for Tessa. He's humiliated her _again_. And there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle.

As Ethan disappears around the corner, clearly having seen enough to get a clear read on the situation, Scott snaps back to Luke, demanding, "Who did you tell? Does everyone know?"

“Why should I care? You’re making a move on my girlfriend and you expect me to feel bad that your secret’s out?”

It throws gasoline on the fire.

Scott explodes. He surges forward, sending Luke crashing into the lockers. When they step away again, there's a sizeable indent left from the impact and Luke's throwing all his weight behind retaliation, pushing Scott into a tussle that ends up on the floor.

They don't notice the crowd assembling around them. They don't notice their principal walking over, sharply calling out, "Everyone get to class!” They don’t notice the punches as they land, too intent on their own next move to feel the impact of every hit. That’ll come later. For now, they’re running on adrenaline, grappling with each other to let out the sudden burst of aggression that’s overcome them both.

“You two, my office!” Miss Shaw yells out as she pulls them apart, with one of the other teachers restraining Luke as she holds onto Scott. The two boys are left looking at each other – panting and disheveled – and there’s no animosity left, just aching confusion as they survey all that’s left of their shattered friendship: bruises, cuts and infinite detention.

 

*

 

Scott’s redirected to the school nurse while Luke heads to the principal’s office first.

As they swap places, ushered by two anxious teaching assistants who had clearly been unfortunate enough to have an untimely free period, they pass each other in the hallway and don’t say a word. It’s the first time Scott can really take in the extent of the damage: Luke’s cheek is already purpling, his hands are bleeding at the knuckles, his t-shirt betrays rips and tears.

Scott can only imagine how he looks now. He’d avoided glancing at the small mirror in the medical room, but he’s got a small bandage to a cut on his forehead and he can feel the pain of bruises all down his body now.

His hockey coach, Mr Matthews, is lingering in Miss Shaw’s doorway when he gets to the office. There’s a cursing glance sent his way, a mumble of something he doesn’t quite catch, and then he’s left to his fate.

The few steps it takes to cross the threshold into the stuffy little office are cautious, his eyes keeping low and avoiding contact. He knows where the wood-framed, thinly-cushioned chairs are positioned so finds his way into one quickly, without direction. He’s done this before; he knows the deal. The seat is even more uncomfortable than he remembers.

The stifling silence stretches out, the air in the room seeming to drain away until it feels like he can’t breathe.

When it breaks, he’s subjected to a long lecture about his behaviour. Scott unconsciously tunes it out, only taking in the occasional word: _aggressive_ , _expected more_ , _unacceptable_ , _disappointment_ , _your mother_ , _last warning_. His mind is too busy thinking of Tessa – where she is and what she’s hearing, what she’s feeling, what she’ll say when he finds her. He knows what this damn high school can be like, how nasty little truths can spread like wildfire, transforming into something else, something worse. And she’s out there dealing with it alone, unaware of what’s coming until it comes, until it burns her. Because of him.

“You’ll play in tonight’s game – I’ll never hear the end of it from Coach Matthews if I suspend you immediately – but, after that, no more hockey for the rest of the term. I’ll allow you to train with the team provided that you and Luke can restrain yourselves from fighting,” Miss Shaw continues to explain, the words laced with an exasperated sigh, “but no more games. If I hear a word to the contrary, no hockey at all. Nothing.”

It sounds final. He daren’t argue, he daren’t so much as blink. His head absently nods along with her terms, not processing any of it; there’s too much chaos inside his head already.

“And your permission for time out of school is revoked,” she adds – an afterthought.

And then it sinks in. No more Grand Prix.

“But, no, wait!”

“Scott, this is non-negotiable.”

“What about Tessa?” His voice cracks open on her name.

His principal raises her eyebrows just slightly. He thinks maybe it’s enough, maybe she’ll think better of it considering Tessa’s record – but then she replies, “Well, perhaps Tessa will have to find herself a partner who can restrain himself from getting into fistfights at school, eh?”

“No,” he says, almost a desperate sob. “No, she needs me. She _needs_ me.”

“Scott.” She sighs, and it’s not entirely unsympathetic but he knows he’s not making up any ground. It’s too late. “You should’ve thought about that before you started hitting your friend out there.”

He can’t help but sink down in the seat. He covers his face with his hands, pulling on his disheveled hair like he’s desperately trying to latch onto a solution. But it’s done now. And if the heels of his hands are damp with tears, nobody else needs to know that. Miss Shaw simply remains quiet, resolute in her punishment.

There’s nothing more to say to each other, so she allows him to sit quietly for as long as he needs to compose himself. It feels like forever, but he has no measure of it. There’s only the forgiving, close-mouthed smile that the principal offers once he moves to leave. It’s pity. The kind of well-meaning, sorrowful pity that makes his stomach twist into knots. If the principal reprimanding him is feeling sorry for him in this moment of rock bottom, it only serves to highlight how truly pathetic he must seem.

As he’s walking out of the her office, he starts to feel the throb of his bruises.

That’s when he catches sight of Tessa. She’s standing by her locker, directly across from the door, when he comes out, and he can tell that she’s facing into it to hide herself. He watches the way she draws in a long, deep breath; she’s steeling herself.

One of the girls from her class walks by, passing between them, throwing her a snide little: “Getting yourself a fake boyfriend just to make Ethan jealous is a new low, Tess.”

Tessa turns around reflexively, perhaps out of a compulsion to be polite. Speak when spoken to, and all that; her manners are automatic. Whatever reply she might’ve considered gets lost, and her eyes drift from where Jen was to Scott’s position on the other side of the hallway. Big, sparkling green eyes fixed on him. Sparkling a little too much. He can hardly breathe.

“T. T, I…” He hasn’t thought this far ahead. He hasn’t been able to think straight since the moment he’d seen Luke shooting daggers at him. But now, looking at her and knowing how much he’s let her down, any kind of clear thought seems impossible.

“You got in a fight,” she says flatly. It’s not a question.

“I’m sorry,” is all he finds to offer in return. It sounds as pathetic as he feels.

“Your eye…” Tessa reaches a hand up as though to touch him, despite the gulf between them. They’re still on opposite sides of the corridor but the gesture seems instinctive. Her hand withdraws as soon as she catches herself, as though stirring from a daze. “Does it hurt?”

Scott shakes his head; he hadn’t even noticed the black eye yet.

There’s a long, blank silence where neither quite knows what to say. Words don’t seem enough. Because the mess they’re in together, he’d made all on his own. And eventually he whispers, “I’m so sorry, T. I…”

“We can’t go to the Grand Prix now,” she states. There’s no animosity to it; it’s defeated and sad. The signing of their permission slips had always come with the caveat of proper behaviour, solid grades and, it went without saying, no beating up friends in school hallways.

That’s why he can’t argue. He can’t look at her as he says, again, “I’m so sorry, Tess. I… I’m gonna fix it.”

Instead of replying, as he half-expects, with _you can’t_ , she pivots. “We got kind of swept up in everything, eh?” Tessa shrugs; it’s sad and small. “Everyone knows it was all fake, Scott, but now people think we had sex. And it's, like, the whole school. And you... You knew she saw us together?"

“I didn’t… know what to do.”

“No, I know,” she accepts, before drawing in a sniff. Tessa inhales sharply through her nose as she discreetly swipes her pinky across her cheek. “But now I’m... a laughing stock. And everyone’s whispering about me – not you, _me_ \- and it’s just… You were supposed to have my back. Even if it wasn’t real, you were still my best friend.”

If he’d thought the past tense of it had hurt with Luke, by comparison, that now seemed inconsequential. _This_ , this was pain. It was a breath-stopping, sharp sting that left him utterly helpless. Still, he insists, “Tessa, I _am_ your best friend. I know I’ve fucked up, but I just wanted–”

“I know you really like Emily, and you can’t help it. It’s okay. And maybe you _do_ like me too, or you think you do, but I just… I don’t… want to be your placeholder girlfriend anymore,” she says, cutting him off, her voice so quiet he can barely hear her over the background hubbub of the school, though he wouldn’t dare ask her to repeat it. He can hardly bear to hear it at all. “I know you don’t mean it, I know it’s not…” Her voice trails off, eyes looking anywhere but at him.

Eventually, she looks up at him directly. Her eyes lock onto his only to say: “I don’t want to see you for a while, okay?” It’s calm and steady, and maybe this was what she was steeling herself for all along.

“No, no,” slips out – not in disagreement but panic. He only thinks to plead, “What about skating?”

It was the wrong tack. He feels it keenly. Skating doesn’t matter; or, it does, but only because of her, and what it means for _them_. But it’s all he trusts. It’s the one thing he knows she’ll stick with – she always has. He doesn’t expect her to forgive him, not right away, but there’s skating – of course, there is. They’ve always had skating.

So, he doesn’t quite know what to do when, solemnly, she replies, “I don’t know, Scott.”

Tessa snaps closed her locker with one arm hooked around her books, and he watches her disappear down the hallway.

 

*

 

She’s not at the game that night. He shouldn’t be surprised.

She doesn't answer his calls, so he decides to give her the space she clearly needs. Well, space enough until he sees her at practice in the morning. Tessa never misses practice.

Except, when he turns up at the rink the following day, she isn't there. She rarely runs late, but there might've been traffic from London or she might've slept through her alarm – it’s not unheard of. He skates in circles, aimlessly following the same lines along the ice, until Suzanne comes over to him. There’s a pitying look in her eyes and it makes his breath catch in his throat; it’s that same look Miss Shaw had given him. She knows Tessa’s not coming; he can see it.

"Scott, I don't think we're, uh, training today," she says, only speaking once she’s close enough not to have to call out with any volume.

"Huh?”

As she gets closer, he can feel her careful eyes sketching out a dot-to-dot of the marks he bears from his fight with Luke, taking inventory of every bruise and every cut. Suzanne brushes past it, though, and the lack of questioning betrays that she already knows somehow. Instead, her voice so delicate that it stirs the prick of tears, she asks, "Tess didn't call you?"

He doesn’t say a word. The unspoken answer stings.

"Listen, can we have a chat? Maybe go over to the office?" Suzanne suggests softly – every word delicate and deliberate. She bites her lip as she awaits his response.

Scott shrugs, too distracted by thoughts of Tessa to focus on anything else. She's never missed a practice. Never. Not even when she had her ear infection, not when the car broke down halfway to Ilderton, not when training clashed with some big ballet try-out. This painful exception suddenly proved the rule. And he'd taken it for granted all this time, knowing without sparing it a second thought that she'd always be there, waiting.

He follows Suzanne off the ice obediently, letting her lead the way to the office in the back.

"What's going on, Suze?"

"Listen, Scott, I have… some news. It breaks my heart a little bit to tell you but," she sighs, "I'm leaving at the end of the season. I'm moving to Halifax to get my psychology degree, so I can't stay coaching out here.” Her voice gets shaky as she continues: “I wish I could. I love you kids so much and I know how much potential you have, but it's—"

He cuts her off: "You can't leave."

"Scott."

"You can't just… leave.” He doesn’t care one little bit about the petulance of his protests, he only knows that Tessa needs Suzanne – they’re a team, they have their book club and their in-jokes and that shared creative vision that’s got them this far  – and he needs Tessa. More than anything, he needs Tessa and ice dance and all of it. “We can’t do it without you; we need you."

"Scott..." She doesn't quite know what to say.

The pause lets the news sink in, and then he nods. "What about T?"

"I called Tess last night to talk it through with her," she explains. "She was sweet and supportive – you know how she is – but I can't help but worry. She doesn't always say what she's feeling and I know she won't want to upset me.” He bows his head, suddenly hyper-aware of the selfishness of his own response. “But, you know, you'll still have Paul and Carol and everyone else, and, most importantly, you two have each other. I think you'll be just fine."

"I don't know," he mutters. Suzanne’s eyes, teary from her own revelation, watch him carefully; there’s something arresting about the honesty there. She knows Scott and Tessa as well as anyone. She’s seen the best and worst. But the way she looks at him now makes him want to burst into tears.

Suzanne puts a hand on Scott’s shoulder. "She needs _you_."

He blinks away the tears. "Not like I need her."

"You ever tell her that?" she prods, her gaze still fixed to his expression. He can feel her watching as tears settle on the waterline of his eyes. "Because I think she could do with hearing it once in a while."

He clears his throat. "Did she say something?"

"Well, no. She's a bottler, that partner of yours. But even before I told her my news, she seemed out of sorts. Not like herself."

“I really… I’ve messed everything up.”

 

*

 

Danny’s the only person home when Scott gets back from practice early. The meeting in Suzanne’s office doesn’t come close to filling the hour before school, so he throws himself onto his parents’ lumpy, old sofa to wait it out.

As he lands, the back of his neck hitting the hard arm of it a little awkwardly, his eyes land on the coffee table in their lounge. The DVD cases from only a few weeks earlier are still scattered there: _The Princess Bride_ and _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_. Unable to restrain his knee-jerk response, Scott kicks out his foot to knock the edge of the table. It sends the cases flying onto the carpet, the disc of one sliding out loose as it crash-lands.

It doesn’t take long before his older brother finds him slumped across the couch, his hands covering his face as the existential crisis dawns.

“Why are you moping?” Danny asks, throwing a cushion directly at Scott to get his attention. When Scott’s hands move to reveal the dark bruising under his eye and the swelling around it, his brother adds, “You look rough.”

There’s a sobering silence as the two of them look at each other. It’s a look that lasts long enough that Danny must realize it’s not a joke; it’s not the standard teen angst that he’s grown accustomed to with both Scott and Charlie over the years. It’s _something_. And eventually, Scott admits, “Tess and I broke up… I think.”

With the blend of warmth and teasing only he can balance, Danny quips, “What did you do this time?”

“Why do you assume it’s me?” There’s no bite to it, just a tired, melancholic attempt at an old routine. It’s like Scott’s attempting to echo that same familiar back-and-forth they’ve always shared, but he can’t quite muster the energy.  

“She’s perfect,” his brother replies, as if it’s obvious, as if it goes without saying, “and she’s perfect for you. She’s been head over heels since the first time you asked her out.”

“She has not.”

“Why else would she put up with you?”

Scott’s face pales. He swallows, unable to bear contemplating that question.

“She adores you. Are you really telling me you don’t know that?” He’s laughing ever so slightly now, and it rankles Scott. “What about the time you fucked up all your steps at your first dance test and she stuck with you anyway, or when she ditched that concert to come over the night before your exam to teach you, what, like all of Hamlet in an evening. And, come on, the one time she skipped out on the game was when you couldn’t play because you were sick, so she came to the house with that soup her mom made and a bunch of movies from Blockbuster.”

“How’d you even remember that?” Scott asks in some vague effort to deflect from the point. In his mind, though, he can’t help but continue Danny’s thread to include all the things his brother doesn’t even know about.

“Mom brings it up every chance she gets! She almost cried.”

Starting to accept his brother’s hypothesis, Scott says, almost to himself, “Why would she even like me?”

At first, Danny just shrugs. “You don’t get to choose who you like, Scott,” he offers, with so much softness that Scott is transported to that night he’d been sat in the car with Tessa as he’d tried to talk some sense into her about Ethan. Everything seems so painfully obvious now.

“And, Scotty, I make fun of you because you’re my little brother and that’s my job, and I’m not saying you haven’t made your fair share of mistakes, but you’re good to her too.” His expression is earnest now, persuasive eyes full of promise. It’s the kind of hereditary optimism that Scott’s now forgotten.

“Don’t give yourself too hard a time,” he continues. There’s a sweet reluctance with every kind word betraying the unfamiliarity of this dynamic; they’re so used to goading and mocking one another. In lieu of their familiar banter, he reassures Scott, “You look out for her. Have done since you met.

“I still remember when you were just two tiny kids, and you took the flowers from the carnival just so you could be the one to present them to her. And the time you drove to London to pick her up when her car broke down before practice, even though you’d never make it in time anyway. I know you got Timbits on the way, too, because the box was still in the footwell when Charlie took your aux cord. Plus, you always cheat for her on game day.” Their annual Virtue and Moir family bonding day had been a tradition since the partnership began, always rife with the kind of extreme competitiveness that has been known to descend into all out war. “And there’s the fact that you laugh at every damn thing she says, you rarely look at anyone else if she’s in the room, and when any other skater gives her so much as a dirty look, you swoop in to defend her.”

As though tired of recounting old, obvious anecdotes that shouldn’t need spelling out, Danny concludes, “You’re both… the same.”

“But I let her down, Dan. And now I’ve lost her. Everything’s a fucking mess. I can’t play hockey, Suzanne’s leaving, and Tessa’s never going to forgive me.”

“Scott. Just get your shit together and fix it.”

_Yeah, like it’s that simple_ , Scott thinks bitterly. _Just fix it_. But what other choice is there? He can’t imagine his life without Tessa. He can hardly bear just a morning without her. When it comes down to it, everything might have fallen apart in spectacular, spontaneous synchronicity – hockey, skating Luke – but none of it matters when compared to her. 


	6. all in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Scott nods. “Tessa. She–she can’t forgive me. She thinks it was all just me trying to keep up the lie. She thinks I still like... “ He can’t quite say Emily’s name aloud, but Luke raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement. “So, I don’t know what to do to convince her.”_

The first thing Scott does when he gets to school is park himself in the principal’s office, ready to appeal, rather desperately, for leniency. He sits down, once again, in that hard, thinly-cushioned seat in front of her desk and waits for her to show up, determined to make his case. _For Tessa_ , he thinks to himself with all the naive determination he can muster. He might not feel justified in doing it for himself, but he can do this for Tessa. She doesn’t deserve to be collateral damage in his punishment, and he’s hopeful that, with a day to think on it, his principal will have made the same assessment.

When Miss Shaw eventually comes into the room at last, dumps what looks like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag on the desk and looks up to see him there, she jumps out of her skin. “Christ, Moir! You frightened the life out of me!” She lays her hand flat over her chest, eyes wide as she glares at him in silent demand of some kind of explanation.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, wincing. It’s not the ideal start to his pitch. “I really needed to talk to you.”

Adjusting to the sudden revelation that he’s there, her lips tighten in anticipation of whatever he’s about to tell her. “I don’t think there’s anything left to say, Scott. I’m not going to let you off the hook. I’ve got two kids in my school walking around with black eyes.”

Scott bows his head in a gesture that he hopes she reads as remorse. “I’m sorry about that. I can… cover it up better.”

“Scott, this is not going to disappear with a dab of concealer.” She says it wryly, attempting to break the tension with an attempt at humour, but it makes him feel a little ridiculous.

Nevertheless, he rallies: “The thing is, you can punish me all you want, really, but I don’t think Tess should have to suffer because I made a mistake. She’s been working so hard for this Grand Prix and if I can’t go, she can’t go.”

“Scott, like I said yesterday, I know you’re upset but you should have thought about that when you started punching one of your fellow students.” She begins rooting through her bag, as though ready to move onto something else, absently reminding him: “I’m not letting you off the hook.”

“Can’t you punish me another way? I won’t play hockey ever again. I won’t even go to practice,” he suggests, edging closer to the edge of his seat in his efforts to seek out her full attention once more.

Miss Shaw sighs heavily, resuming eye contact to say, with a shake of her head, “Scott, you can’t just… choose your own punishment. It sort of defeats the point. You’re not meant to like it.”

He’d really expected that step one in his master plan to fix everything would go a little more smoothly.

In the end, it’s a no. A cold, hard no.

At her urging, he shuffles out of the office defeatedly. He hams up the slump of his walk just to see if that’ll do the trick, but she resolutely ignores him, instead pushing her glasses up her nose with an air of finality, as though placing a punctuation mark at the end of it. There’s not a hint of progress made, nothing achieved. He tried. It just wasn’t good enough. And he knows that’s not good enough for Tessa.

That’s why he lies. Again. And maybe no good can come of it, but what’s another lie at this point?

As he walks out of that stuffy little office, he spots her walking by her locker. Tessa sees him, he knows she does, but her eyes are quick to scan around, pretending otherwise. She tucks her chin to her chest as she walks by, only stopping when he calls out her name. “Hey, hey, Tess. Wait up.”

She looks up, offering a smile he knows to be fake; he’s seen it enough times in competitions. It’s her performance smile, nothing like that warm, fond little grin she reserves just for him. Her eyes are cold to it, her lips barely parted. Her mask is on and he doesn’t get to see behind it anymore. That’s why he can’t help but reassure her, “The Grand Prix is back on. I can go.”

There’s a look in her eye that he can’t quite read. She says nothing, but she seems to be sizing him up. It makes Scott nervous, uncomfortable in the no man’s land of silence, and, remembering their last conversation, he stumbles on to say, “If… If that’s what you want.”

The fact that he doesn’t have permission to go to the skating competition at all feels insignificant when compared to what Tessa wants. She needn’t know he’s risking permanent suspension for the pleasure.

 

*

 

Tessa only skips one practice session and then she’s back. He assumes it’s more likely out of loyalty to Suzanne than any forgiveness for him, but he’s grateful for it nonetheless.

During training – although she’s there, day in, day out – she’s more distant now. Their private language is muted, little glances denied. Instead, she becomes inseparable from Suzanne. She clings to her coach’s every word, and every time they end a run-through, she breaks apart from him swiftly to turn away and gauge Suze’s reaction. Her eagerness to hear her every thought and feeling feels more like a polite escape from him. Each time she breaks the intimacy of their dance to glide out to the boards, he feels a pang in his chest at the memory of what they used to be.

She never lingers in hold long enough for him to whisper to her. There are broken sentences eked out through forced smiles as they move, but he can’t muster the right words and remember his steps all at the same time. So, it continues, unresolved.

The only exception occurs during a moment of quiet, when Suzanne and Paul are deep in conversation with a younger team who are sharing the ice with them. It’s their last practice before their Grand Prix competition and, despite the tension between them, they’re finding their way through. There’s relief in the character of the dance. There’s something freeing about getting to love her for three and a half minutes, without inhibition. They flit and float and fly, without the weight of reality bearing down on them.

Maybe it’s the mood of their program lingering or maybe the great healer of time is starting to work its magic, but quietly, so quietly he wonders if she truly wants him to hear her, Tessa says, “You were right about Ethan.” It breaks what feels like the longest silence of his life.

“What?” Her words catch him totally off-guard as they come out of their dance hold.

“He was the one.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was the one who told everyone we had sex that night, in the hot tub. He told people he’d heard it straight from Luke, who’d heard it from Emily,” Tessa explains matter-of-factly, the revelation shared with a flat, unemotional delivery. “I should never have–”

Scott doesn’t think about the way his hand strokes up the outside of her arm. It’s instinctive, like most things between them. However her words may sound, he knows she’s not cold to it; he knows _her_. His own reply spills out with a contrasting burst of urgency and warmth. “T, that’s not… on you.”

“I should’ve known he was like that,” she insists, shrugging like it’s obvious, like of course this is her fault. But he can’t hide his confusion.

“No. _No_ ,” Scott argues with her, argues like it isn’t Tessa he’s talking to but every meddling person on the outside of this. “It was Ethan. It was me. It was Luke, Emily, the fucking assholes at that school who pass on every lie and half-truth. It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything.”

Tessa bows her head a little, before dryly adding, “You’re not gonna punch him, though, are you?”

He’s tensed up from his mini rant, but her words prompt his shoulders to relax before he replies: “If I could get away with it, I’d do more than that. But no, I won’t punch him.”

She holds her gaze, looking at him as if waiting for the uncontainable chaser comment.

Scott can’t help himself: “He deserves a punch.”

Tessa’s hands move to her hips. “But you’re not gonna–”

“No!”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Scott glances up at her. “You know, _you_ could–”

“You think I’m gonna punch my ex-boyfriend?”

“Listen, it was just a suggestion.” He raises his palms defensively.  

“Okay.”

“Because you could.”

“Oh, I know I could.” There’s a hint of a smile on Tessa’s face, a real one. It’s flirty and promising, and then she hides it away, turning her face as she glides off towards where Suzanne and Paul are talking.

Even this small hint of what they used to be feels like the sweetest torture imaginable. It’s effortless, the way they fall back into their familiar rhythm. It’s as easy as breathing. Sometimes, when he looks at her in a particular light, it’s easier than breathing. In fact, it’s what makes him feel most alive. That next quip, that next jab. And there she is, always ready with hers. Always ready to remind him that she can match him step for step.

Still, this little glimmer of hope starts to make him believe that if he can just prove to her that he can be relied upon, that together they’re unstoppable, that’ll do it. He starts to believe that if they can win their Grand Prix event, they’ll rediscover whatever’s lost. He can prove to her that the old Virtue and Moir magic, that effortless patter and the way they can read each other’s minds like a sixth sense, is still there and it’s worth fighting for.

 

*

 

They go to Richmond for their second Grand Prix.

They’re seated separately on the cross-country flight this time, meaning there’s no opportunity to hold her hand during turbulence or lean onto her shoulder to watch her movie of choice on the tiny screen. They don’t have parents with them for this trip – it’s a domestic flight, so it’s just the two of them with Suzanne and Paul.

She doesn’t say two words to him at the airport.

She says little more when they arrive at the hotel, at the arena, on the ice. When Tessa wants to put up a brick wall, it’s indestructible.

Scott soon finds himself spending a lot of time alone with himself and his – relentlessly buzzing (still cracked) – phone. There’s a series of long, angry texts from his mother popping up on the lockscreen that are progressively headed in the direction of ‘not angry, just disappointed’. It also seems to ring every five minutes from various numbers, the list of people who must be furious with him now feeling innumerable. He has to turn it off in the end, blacking out the cacophony of furious voices he knows await him upon his return.

 _It doesn’t matter now_. He’s in Richmond, they’ve made it to the rink, and he’s going to prove to Tessa that what they have is worth fighting for. It’s at least worth skating for.

Of course, Scott’s isn’t the only number they have. As he’s lingering by the boards, waiting to set out for their warm-up, Tessa appears, suddenly looking a little frazzled. “I just got a call,” she tells him, sounding ominous. “You’re not allowed to be here.”

“No,” he admits dismissively, like it’s nothing, no big deal.

“You’re cutting class to be here.” The realization dawns without a hint of surprise. Her tone drips with so much exasperated resignation, he can almost hear what she doesn’t say: _I should’ve guessed_.

“So are you.”

“Scott, I have permission.”

“Well, I’ve got unlimited detention and a hell of a telling off waiting for me, but you don’t hear me bragging about it, eh, kiddo.”  

“But you don’t even care that much about this stuff,” she argues, refusing to humour his attempt at lightening the mood. There’s a little crinkle above her nose; it seems to be some measure of curiosity or concern.

Scott finds it hard to know what to say. There aren’t words to express just how wrong she is, so he simply says, “I do. I care about it more than anything.” Scott reaches for her hand, desperate for something that’ll ground him. She’s always been the only way, he realizes now. “I’m sorry I never showed you that. I don’t even think I realized until we almost lost it.”

Those big, beautiful green eyes piercing holes into his skin suddenly close. She draws in a long, unsteady breath to centre herself as Scott just watches, not wanting to over-step by encroaching on her moment. He feels out of sync with her, unusually unsure of what she needs from him and what to do next.

It takes him by surprise, then, when she steps forward, swallowing up the space between them to move her hand to his side. It draws him into a hug: tight and still.

They slot together. His face fits into the arch of her neck, his lips brushing against the exposed skin there as he feels her hot breath tingling above the line of his collar. The smell of her fills his senses and it’s almost exactly the same as that night, except the warmth of that cozy hot tub is replaced by the cool, fresh air of the rink. But she’s warm against him, nonetheless. And her body, just like it had that night, fits against his like a shape fitting back inside its mould. They’ve been together long enough now, perhaps he’ll always feel this way inside her embrace.

Their arms circle one another, her hand settling just above his ass as his steers a little higher, staying on the safe side, not wanting to do a thing that might prompt her to draw away. It’s intimate, almost perilously so, and he’s sensible enough in the moment to savour it.

They stand there in silence like two halves of a singular entity, never coming apart. He can feel her heartbeat against his chest and the rhythm of her breaths timing out with his own. They start to breathe together, slow and steady. Unison.

It bridges the gap.

Inside their embrace, they rediscover that connection – that connection that’s felt so effortless for so long. It’s their secret sauce, their edge.

When they skate out onto the ice, everything else is put to one side as they connect only to each other. There’s no Luke and Emily, no Ethan, no school drama. It’s just Tessa and Scott, like always, and he thinks, _maybe if this is good enough, maybe it can always be like this_. If he can show her how spectacular they are together when it’s just the two of them, maybe she can imagine a whole world like this.

That’s how he gets through an entire program without a misstep. It’s impeccable. The perfect measure of passion and technical excellence.

That’s how they win.

The moment the music ends and they break from their ending positions, he scoops her up in his arms without a moment’s hesitation to allow doubt to set in. They allow themselves to be consumed by sweeping euphoria as the crowd comes to its feet. He celebrates a glorious, triumphant clean skate – their second in as many days – by squeezing her until she’s hoisted off the ground.

It’s as they begin to part and he lifts his head from its place in the hollow of her neck that he catches sight of Marina Zueva in the stands. It’s a strange moment, her scrutinizing gaze feeling sharp even from way up there.

He draws away from Tessa to say something about it. She’ll be able to explain why the top coach from another skating school is watching a competition with quite such intense focus despite not having a team there. She can make sense of everything.

But when he sees her face, any thought of Marina drifts far from his mind.

Tessa’s beaming brightly, her lips spreading from ear to ear as she leaves his hold to wave out to the crowd. Her eyes aren’t shining, though. There’s a tightness in her jaw that he can’t miss. She’s happy, of course, but it’s not the kind of happy he’d been feeling for just a short moment there, the kind of happy that only comes from thinking that everything’s going to work out. Instead, it’s her performance smile.

He’d really believed it would win her back; he’d thought if they won, they’d be back to themselves. For such a brief moment, he thought they were.  

Instead of triumphant, the victory starts to feel hollow.

She doesn’t know that as she lets her hand slide into his as they leave the ice together. She doesn’t know that when they hug to celebrate their season’s best scores. She doesn’t know that he’d pinned all his hopes on this, on them making it to the Grand Prix Final for a fairytale ending, only to realize that it’s not going to be enough.

 

*

 

When they get back to school, Scott doesn’t bother going to class. He decides to cut to the chase and heads straight to the principal’s office, ready with a list of excuses he knows won’t be good enough; he’s already tried them all out on his mother to no avail. At least they won, though, and nothing could convince him that it wasn’t worth it – even if things are still a little frosty with Tessa, even if their win wasn’t quite the fairytale he’d hoped for. It was worth it to hold her hand for those three and a half minutes. It was worth it to feel free for the duration of their programs. It was worth it to see that gold medal hanging around Tessa’s neck, looking more right than anything ever has.

It _was_ worth it, he reminds himself as his hand balls into a fist to knock on the door.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting to see when it opens, but Luke sat slumped in that same chair he’s been keeping warm for the past few visits is definitely not it. His principal simply looks over the top of her glasses to take in the spectacle. “Ah. Mr Moir. We meet again.”

“Should I–”

“Come in, come in. We were just having a talk about when I might next expect to replace a set of lockers,” she remarks, with an offhand glibness. “I think it would be good if you and Luke had a little chat.”

Quickly, it becomes clear that Miss Shaw has appointed herself mediator. She speaks in that clear, slow voice that adults often use when talking to small children as she explains how important it is to resolve the hostility, especially if – she pointedly looks at Scott – they want her to review previous misdemeanours with a more forgiving eye.

There’s a lot of mumbling and awkward silences as Scott and Luke are encouraged to open up to one another. It proves pretty hard to do with their principal hovering over them, but there’s a general air of understanding. It might just be shared discomfort at the situation, but at least their principal has found some way to bring the two of them together.

The exchange feels stilted as Miss Shaw drags it out, reminding the two of them of the importance of forgiveness and growth and, also, that imminent school board review she has coming up.

Scott’s half expecting her to bring out a peace treaty for them both to sign when she gets called out to another incident. They don’t catch the details but overhear something about Jamie Groves and the C block toilets before she scurries off, saying rather sharply, “I trust I can leave the two of you alone for a minute.”

A silence settles. It’s all this room is good for, Scott thinks to himself: stifling silences that make time stop still.

Eventually, Luke clears his throat. He clears his throat rather pointedly, and then attempts, remarkably, to clear the air.

“Dude, can we just… forget it all happened?” he suggests abruptly, screwing his face up as he turns to look at Scott. “I know it’s a fucking mess, man, but we’ve been friends a long time and I–”

Scott cuts in: “Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you–are you sure? I get why you’re mad at me. I didn’t mean to fuck up things with Emily. I really didn’t.”

“I believe you,” he says, and there’s a hand on Scott’s shoulder all of a sudden.

“Are you and her… Are things okay? Is she okay?”

“You know, things were kind of… off between us for a while. She went kinda quiet, and while we were on the ski trip, she really… It was like she couldn’t look at me anymore. I thought she was just nervous, and I got that. I tried to reassure her it was okay if she wasn’t ready but she just ran off.” His voice strains as he speaks until eventually, he swallows to relieve the tightness in his throat. “We talked it out and… I guess she didn’t want to lie to me. But she was worried I’d explode if I found out, which, yeah, when she’s right, she’s right.”

There’s a quiet between them as Scott simmers in the regret of their fight, the now-yellowing bruises aching as he thinks of it again.

“And, obviously, you didn’t want her to tell me.” Luke says it without accusation, simply matter-of-fact, and Scott nods gently in acceptance of it. “It kind of fucked with her head.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell her I’m sorry but I figured she probably never wants to hear from me again,” Scott admits.

“I think she could use a sorry.”

Scott gives a nod.

“I love her, man.”

“I know you do. I never wanted you to think I was gonna… get in the way, or that I even wanted to,” Scott explains urgently. “That’s why I wanted her to forget about it. She was never meant to see a word of that dumb letter.”

Luke turns his face up to look at Scott, taking in the plain remorse on his face. “I’m sorry I punched you in the face.”

“I’m sorry I punched _you_ in the face. And the other places.”

“Yeah, dude, you really went off on me, huh?” Luke teases, a little of his old self starting to reappear, earning a light, if slightly uneasy, chuckle from Scott. “I shouldn’t have said what I said about Tessa.”

“No.”

“Is she–how is she?”

That prompts Scott to hide his face away in his hands. “I don’t know. She won’t talk to me, not really. She’s polite and we’ve been training but…”

“You really love her? Like, in _that_ way?”

Scott nods. “Tessa. She–she can’t forgive me. She thinks it was all just me trying to keep up the lie. She thinks I still like... “ He can’t quite say Emily’s name aloud, but Luke raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement. “So, I don’t know what to do to convince her.”

“You could always write her a letter,” Luke says, the quip coming out half-hearted and heavy.

Scott’s head snaps around, and he shakes it with a smile to match his friend’s. For the first time since everything blew up, he feels a sense of calm wash over him. It’s that warm and fuzzy feeling setting in as he remembers all the reasons why he’d wanted so desperately to preserve this friendship.

“Sorry. Bad joke.”

“I think my letter-writing days might be over,” Scott replies, with a roll of his eyes.

“I think that’s for the best, buddy,” Luke says, patting his knee a couple of times.

But the idea lingers.

 

*

 

When Miss Shaw comes back, she’s quick to hurry Scott and Luke off to class, double-taking when she finds them still there, as if she’d forgotten about the two remorseful boys waiting in her office. “You’ve missed enough class now,” she says, gesturing towards the doorway rather dismissively.

As Scott makes to leave, she adds, “I’ll make sure you’ve got a front row seat in every lesson so you can pay careful attention while you catch up what you’ve missed. And, Scott, try to stay out of trouble today. That’ll give me chance to think about what to do with you.”

Scott nods obediently and makes his way to the math classroom he hasn’t seen for over a week now. He shuffles reluctantly to the desk in the front row and takes his place, drawing out his exercise book to start.

That’s when the first draft begins.

As the day stretches out, the lined paper notebook begins to fill with his messy scrawl. Not a word of it has to do with the lessons being taught. Even being sat under the teachers’ noses does nothing for his academic focus. Instead, he’s distracted – as has become all too routine – by thoughts of Tessa, and the idea that Luke had unintentionally planted in his head.

Despite all his hesitation about another letter, and despite all the chaos the last one has caused, he wants to show his conviction somehow. He wants to prove to her that the feelings he has, the feelings he knows have laid latent for so long – there’s nothing ephemeral about them. He’ll write it down in words, put his name to it in ink, sign, seal and hand deliver it himself. This isn’t like before. It’s not going to get locked away in a soon-forgotten box. He will make sure that she always has a record of the boy who loves her, so that she need never doubt it. And even if she rejects him, it won’t change a thing; he’ll still be that same boy who loves her. He’ll be there for whatever she needs from him.

He writes his way through every period. He convinces his teachers he’s making an effort for once, only occasionally staring dreamily off into the distance to think up that next line. He dedicatedly writes and writes and writes, his brow furrowed and his tongue poking inside his cheek as he concentrates.

By the end of the day, it’s taken shape. There are culled paragraphs and messy asides, with little notes-to-self that he crosses out as each idea makes its way into the body of the letter.

Soon, there _is_ a letter. Another one.

A truer one, he decides.

It’s half an hour till the bell when he signs his name to the final draft. He watches the minutes tick by, figuring out what’s best to do with it. Tessa’s got French at the end of the day but her class is only a few rooms down the hall. He can get there before she leaves, taking into account the very precise way she likes to pack her things away after class.

Scott arrives at the door a little short of breath but running on too much adrenaline to take any notice of the strange looks the other kids are giving him as they pass.

It seems as though every student in the school passes by before Tessa appears. She’s walking out with Kaitlyn Weaver, deep in conversation, and then suddenly she spots him.

“Scott. You’re… panting.”

He looks down at himself, a little self-conscious suddenly. “Sorry, I… wanted to catch you. Can we–can we talk?”

“Umm, Kaitlyn, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” She gives her friend a one-armed hug before turning back to Scott. “Walk me to my locker?”

Scott nods, letting out a sigh of relief at the suggestion. He’s careful not to say a word, not wanting to get ahead of himself, his heart already racing in anticipation.

The school is a hive of activity as everyone floods out of every room in an attempt to flee as soon as possible. The public nature of the scene is not lost on him and, after everything, he’s conscious not to draw Tessa into any further situations of public humiliation.

“Haven’t you got practice?” she asks as they walk in stride.

“What?” It catches him off-guard.

“Hockey.”

“Oh, I’m not–no. No, I don’t play anymore,” he replies with a shrug.

Tessa goes to say something, her mouth parting as if to speak, but then she refrains. Her shoulders drop with her gaze, and then she leads him to her locker. In all his efforts to fix things with Tessa, he’d forgotten about hockey entirely; it’s only when she asks that he remembers he’s missing practice. Still, he finds himself unbothered by the realization.

He stands beside her as she collects her things up, selecting carefully what she wants to place back into her bag. Scott just watches quietly, until she asks, “Are you… Scott, is everything okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. Hey, can we go outside?” he asks suddenly. “I just… want it to be a little more private.”

She doesn’t say anything, holding his gaze with a wary look in her eye. Eventually, she gives a little nod, locking the little metal door and throwing her bag over her shoulder. He stops by his own locker to grab his backpack and they walk out to the side of the school, just out of view of the mass of students flocking from the building.

“I, uh… I wrote you something. I wrote a letter,” he confesses, his voice shy and quiet before he digs his hand into his pocket to get it. Scott unfolds the paper before looking up with earnest eyes and asking, “Can I read it to you?”

“Not like I’d be able to decipher your scrawly penmanship anyway.” He can hear that she’s trying to lighten the mood. Her throat sounds tight and her lids are heavy, but she’s trying.

He feigns mock offence before shaking his head with a smile. He notices a little glimpse of a smile fighting its way out on her face too.

Scott clears his throat and then fixes his eyes to the paper in front of him. He pulls the sheet taut and begins: “To the best partner ever, here is my apology.”

Scott glances up to notice the way her expression has shifted instantly at those words. Suddenly, her eyes are sparkling, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Mostly, he’s just relieved to see that she’s listening – really, truly listening. He swallows and then continues to read: “I’m sorry I hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you on purpose, but what I did was stupid. I’ve been really stupid for a long time and you’ve stuck with me anyway. I know I never deserved you, Tess. I’m sorry.”

She bows her head before steeling herself to look back up at him. He’s relieved she does. It means he gets to witness the look on her face when he says, “Is it too late to say that I’m in love with you? I’m crazy about you, T.”

His voice just about holds out.

 _Fuck_.

Her bottom lip drops, her mouth hanging open in shock. He hears the way her breath stops mid-inhalation.

What had felt bold and romantic on paper now feels just plain terrifying. It’s out there now. It’s out there and he can see the words rebounding in her head, playing over and over as she comes to terms with his revelation. There seems no road map for what to do next, only the words on the page in front of him. So, he continues. “I thought–I really thought I knew what that meant. I thought I was in love with Emily – back a while, anyway. Maybe you could already see that it was really just the idea of her, eh?

“With you, it’s so different. I know you, and you know me – better than anyone. I had it all wrong, I know I did, because really I just wanted someone who would laugh at my bad jokes and know when to hold my hand and pick me up when I’m down and mess around with me. And we already have all that. I think maybe part of why I was so useless at that dating stuff is… I always had you by my side, you know?

“Even skating’s different now,” Scott adds, finding a rhythm as the words begin to spill out more readily. “Because I know I took it for granted for the longest time, but I never realized how much it mattered to me. I know Suze is leaving and you aren’t sure what you want to do but… I’m sure. I’m so sure, Tess. I’ve never been more sure. We can find a way to carry on without her, I know it. We can figure things out.

“And,” he sighs, “I’ll never be good enough for you, T, but I’m asking you to give me a chance anyway. I don’t deserve one, I know, but I want to be better. I want to show you how much I love you. I want to show you all the love you deserve.” He hears her draw in a sharp breath but knows he can’t look up now. If he does, he’ll never be able to continue. So, without his eyes leaving the page, he says, “So, Tess, will you please be my girlfriend? For real this time.”

The hand holding his letter falls to his side as Scott, finally, seeks out her gaze again. He gives an unconscious little nod as if to say, _that’s it, that’s what I needed to say_. If it isn’t enough, at least he tried.

He seeks out the answer in a sea of green, eyes drawn wide as she takes in a long, deep breath. There’s nothing to give away her reply as she swallows to compose herself. The moment of vulnerability draws out, their gazes locked and unmoving.

The question sits in the close air between them.

And then her hand begins, tentatively, to reach forward. Tessa seeks out the letter from his grasp, turning it over to the blank space on the back. “Do you have a pen?” she asks quietly, prompting him to hurriedly dig around in the front pocket of his backpack before handing over a ballpoint.

She takes it and turns to lay the paper flat on the wall of the building, the back of her head blocking his view of the sheet. He can’t see a word of it but he can hear the nib of the pen scratching against the paper.

When Tessa turns around, she passes the letter back to him and there are two checkboxes on the page. Yes and no.

“You ticked yes,” he reads, reeling from the revelation. A big, dumb smile spreads across his face. When his eyes meet hers, he finds her beaming. It’s a smile so beautiful, it takes his breath away, because it’s _the one_ – the one he’d dreamed of, the one he’d so desperately longed for at the Grand Prix, the one that starts with her eyes and permeates every little micro-expression on her face. It’s _his_ smile.

“I really love you, Scott,” she says shyly, a funny little sob escaping with it that sounds like some combination of laughing and crying. Whatever it is, it encapsulates the feeling that burns up inside him.

He breathes out dramatically, pretending to wipe sweat from his brow, then smiles back at her and says, “That’s a relief.”

“You knew, though.”

“I didn’t know. I had a feeling but… I didn’t know,” he insists, a little bashful, his cheeks turning pink as his head turns to the side. He moves a hand up to her face, his thumb catching a single runaway tear.

“How could you not know?”

“Because I’ve been an idiot. I thought you couldn’t possibly—”

She cuts him off by pressing her lips to his, her hand smoothing over the hair on the back of his neck, moving down to his back. As soon as they settle against each other, their heartbeats racing against one another’s chests, fitting together like they always do, Tessa opens her mouth to deepen their kiss.

They quickly find themselves stumbling backwards, until she’s pressed up against the wall. His hands move down the line of her body, marking out lines he knows well, but not like this – never like this before.

They only come apart to catch their breaths, but when they do, he’s overwhelmed by her. Her face is flushed, the outline of her lips smudged red from their kiss, and her eyelashes are laden with tears.

Delicately, and still a little breathless, she admits, “I was just scared.”

Scott moves his forehead to rest against hers. “I’m sorry I made you scared. That’s on me. I know from experience, it takes a lot to scare the fearless Tessa Virtue,” he tells her warmly, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear.

“Not fearless. You’ve got my heart in your hands, you know,” she says, so softly it’s like she’s scared her fragile words will shatter. “You’ve got to be more careful.”

“I will, kiddo. I promise I will.”

“Good.” She kisses him again, smiling against his smile until it moves to something more passionate.

“You’ve got mine too, you know,” Scott pulls away to say.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And then Tessa adds, “You were supposed to realize earlier, by the way.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “Well, that was sort of the thing with–”

“Ethan?”

“Maybe.”

“You were trying to make me jealous.”

“No, I just… I wanted you to see that I wasn’t a kid anymore. You always acted like I was your annoying little sister, and I thought if you saw I was dating someone…”

“Well, well.” Scott’s eyebrows shoot up. “Tessa Virtue…”

“Oh, stop. I had to do something! You were taking forever.”

“I was getting to it,” he insists, chuckling. Then, theatrically, he sighs, “Poor Ethan.”

She nudges his shoulder. “You were not getting to it,” she argues playfully, laughing as she pulls him closer to her again, and kisses him full on the mouth with a rush of confidence.

As they get caught up in each other again, her hand firm on the back of his head pulling him into the kiss as his hand moves down the line of her back to settle on her ass, they hear the sound of a wolf whistle in the background. They break apart, rushing to wipe the evidence from their lips as their eyes scan the scene.

Metres away, Luke’s standing hand-in-hand with Emily en route to his car. There’s a smug giddiness about them, giggling to each other at the scene they’ve just happened upon, and it prompts Scott to sink down and hide his face away in Tessa’s neck to hide his embarrassment. Her hand stroking through his hair is enough to soothe him before he straightens up to give a friendly little nod.

“Don’t fuck it up this time, eh!” Luke yells over to them, and then Emily drags him away by the hand.

 

*

 

When Scott gets home, having practically skipped up the path, there's a letter waiting for him that’s postmarked Canton, Michigan. It sits in the letter tray out in the hall addressed to Scott Moir, propped against a couple of mailing list items and a phone bill. He rushes straight past it to find his brothers. Charlie's making a KD – an old mac and cheese box lying crumpled on top of the recycling – and barely glances up as Scott bursts into the room like a bull in a china shop.  
  
“You're in a hurry,” he remarks, unfazed.  
  
Scott finds himself stumped for what to say. He wants to tell him; he wants to shout from the goddamn rooftops that Tessa Virtue loves him, but it's not really news to anyone else. They've been dating for months. Explaining away the situation, the lie, to his brother feels heavier than his current mood allows for. So, instead, he settles for, “Yeah, me and Tessa, uh, made up and I just...”  
  
Charlie raises his head, eyebrow cocked. He studies the smile Scott can't suppress and one of his own soon breaks out. “Happy for you, man.”  
  
“Yeah.” Scott starts scratching his head, fluffing up his overgrown mop of hair. “I was worried about skating. But I think it's gonna be okay. I think it's all gonna be okay.”  
  
“She called for you actually,” Charlie suddenly remembers.  
  
“Really? I just saw her,” Scott's voice registers surprise, but there's more than a hint of gloating.  
  
“Clearly you're irresistible.”  
  
Scott quickly moves to the house phone and dials in Tessa's number without a second thought. He catches the way Charlie shakes his head at him, but it's not enough to earn a rebuke. When she answers, it's with an immediate, urgent, “Scott?”  
  
“Hey, Tess. Charlie said you called looking for me.” There’s not even a hint of playing it cool. The adrenaline from their conversation (and their kiss) is still coursing through his veins, every inch of his body buzzing with electricity.  
  
“I got a letter. Did you get one? When you got home?” she asks, almost breathless.  
  
“Oh, god. What do you mean, a letter? I never want to hear about another letter as long as I live. Burn it!”  
  
Charlie rolls his eyes in Scott's view. It makes him turn away from his brother, leaning his back against one of the countertops with the long cord of the phone half wrapped around himself.  
  
“No, I think... I think it could be good, Scott. It's about skating. A fresh start. If you’re in then–”

“T, I’m in! I promise you. I’m all in,” he can’t help but interrupt. He can hear the earnest optimism in her voice and lets it carry him with her.

“But you just said–”

“Ignore what I just said! That was stupid. I love letters, can’t get enough of them! I’m in.”

He can hear her laughter – that big, booming laugh he could recognize anywhere – echoing down the line. In the end, she just says his name, so fond and so soft. It comes out like a warning, as if to say, _don’t joke, don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t get my hopes up_. “Scott.”  

“I’m serious, kiddo.”

“Then…” There’s a long pause, and he wonders if she’s deciding whether she’s brave enough to say it. In the end, she is. “I think it could change everything. If we want.”

“If you want to, I want to.”

She laughs again. “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“You’re excited,” he says warmly.

“Yeah, I think I am.”

“Then I’m in.”

“You’re crazy,” she tells him, still giggling.

“It’s Canton, right? Marina?” he asks, getting a little more serious. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do but I assume you’ve already got spreadsheets and pro and con lists and I’m… Well, I’m along for the ride, T. I trust you. Wherever you wanna go, I’ll go.” He manages to stop himself just short of saying, _you wanna go to the moon? I’ll take you to the moon._

“Yeah?”

“And on top of that, I’m not entirely sure I haven’t been expelled yet, so I’ll be looking for a new school one way or the other.”

“Scott?” She’s got her serious voice on now.

“T?”

“You really mean it, though?”

“I can’t wait to see you standing at the top of that podium, Tess. Right beside me. We’re going all the way, kiddo,” he rallies. “No stopping us now, eh?”

The letter remains in his hallway, forgotten amidst the junk mail, a whole future filled with unknown and unimaginable possibilities sealed inside it. He doesn’t open it; instead, he lets Tessa read hers aloud to him over the phone. It sounds better hearing it from her, hearing her nervous excitement bleed into every unsteady syllable she speaks, hearing the hesitation as she acknowledges the sacrifices required, hearing the way she rallies anyway to remind him that they can do it. And he knows that already. Together, they can do anything.

So, Scott doesn’t need a letter.

He’s got Tessa. And he’s got a whole future folded around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who read this along the way, thanks for encouraging me in the process. I wouldn't have been able to finish this little story without the help of [bucketofrice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice/pseuds/bucketofrice) and [falsettodrop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsettodrop/pseuds/falsettodrop), so thank you both again and again and again. (And go read their fics if you haven't already – they're heaven.) I had a bunch of support with this, which is kind of the opposite to my experience on my previous fics, and it just made the whole experience much more enjoyable – especially as this was a little out of my comfort zone!
> 
> I'm genuinely really grateful that any of you take the time to read, hopefully enjoy, and sometimes comment. It's much appreciated, and I mean that even though it sounds cliched. I try really hard to make these stories as good as I can, and hearing back from you when I get it right is the best feeling ever. I hope you all have a great day! Thank you again. :')

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! All comments, thoughts and encouragement very much appreciated, as always.


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